#still not over nicaise

[hopeheartfilia]

oooh they are going into a trap. jokastes maid that he remembered would be harder to convince to keep quiet. She did Not make that arrangment with the nurse the regent did

or so i believe. This just stinks of trap. Go back. Go back and let her go to ios alone. It is hard to know if it is your son or kastors son. But it is jokastes son. Yes its agamble to believe she would try to keep him alive but its the best gamble youve got. If she goes its most reasonable to tel kastor it is his child. Whomevers child it is they are brothers and its unlikely that the child will show signs int he first few months of being one specific half brothers. So. let jokaste go. Its in her best interest to convince kastor it is his and damen it is his. the truth doesnt really matter much but in case it is kastors and he wins you get to be mother of the next king, in case damen wins youll probably be exiled but likely under better circumstances, and you could argue for specific allowances over keeping the child as safe as you can

all in all its double insurance and she would probbly use it, so best to just let her go, shes probably smart enough to at least protect the child a little bit from the regent and knows kastor better then him

[blue-rose-soul]

For hazbin hotel au: what if alastor arrives at young age? Let say an incident which both he and his ma die at same time but because of his heritage, he got sent to hell, forced to survive in the streets until he meet Charlie and the rest of the hotel residents. How do you think will happen if he meet Lucifer?

Oh, so an AU of the AU? Sounds fun! Let me think...

Well, my first thought is that Alastor's demon form would be fairly different, since it's so closely tied into the manner in which he died. Buuuuut... I really like him as a deer demon, so I'm going to handwave that away. I'm also going to have him keep his powers associated with radio, despite him not yet having become a radio host, with the justification that listening to the radio shows together with Nicaise and making her laugh by perfectly imitating the radio man's accent were such fond memories for him they carried over to his demon form.

Ultimately, this version of Alastor still becomes the Radio Demon. But unlike the Alastor who died as an adult, nobody knows what the Radio Demon looks like. He's a mystery, known only for his radio broadcasts and striking down Overlords from the shadows. So when this little red kid with deer ears shows up on Charlie's doorstep introducing himself as the Radio Demon, she and Vaggie are understandably skeptical.

That skepticism dies when he blasts Sir Pentious's airship right out of the sky.

Alastor still brings in Niffty and Husk - two of the only people who know who the Radio Demon really is - still fixes up the building, and still acts as the facility manager. But everyone involved in the hotel keeps his identity a secret, at his request.

When Lucifer arrives at the hotel, he's in sheer disbelief that the hotel's manager is this tiny kid. Never mind Alastor frequently pointing out that he's around a hundred years old now. That doesn't really clarify anything for Lucifer who's several millennia old. He's less of a condescending jerkass to Alastor at first, seeing him as a kid, but Alastor doesn't take kindly to being treated like a child. So Alastor does what Alastor does and prods under Lucifer's armor. He starts throwing himself at Charlie, hanging off her arm, acting like a precocious kid and interrupting Lucifer's attempts to bond with her while shooting the King of Hell smug looks.

Charlie finds it a bit weird given Alastor usually acts more like an adult, but she does think it's kind of cute so she allows it. Lucifer is furious. He frequently refers to Alastor as, 'that damn brat,' and casually picks him up and teleports him to other rooms of the hotel for 'a time out' and generally treats Alastor like he's a nuisance, not a member of the hotel staff.

And then... Alastor's parentage comes out.

Lucifer is just as awkward with the childlike version of Alastor as he is with the version who died as an adult. That awkwardness just manifests differently. He keeps trying to make amends by treating Alastor as though he's an actual kid, lavishing him with gifts, inviting him on trips, so on and so forth. Alastor really doesn't think he should have to decline a trip to Lu Lu World more than once. Charlie tries to step in on his behalf, but she's not so great at dealing with Lucifer's awkwardness either.

One of the most insulting gifts is a pet, similar to Razzle and Dazzle, who is supposed to keep Alastor safe.

Alastor explodes.

He died when he was ten and he's been keeping himself safe ever since then, thank you very much! He was strong enough and clever enough to become one of the most feared Overlords in the Pentagram, all without ever showing his face once! And it's been over a hundred years since then! If Lucifer wanted to be his dad, he's about a century too late!

Unfortunately, one of the downsides of being stuck in a child's body is that sometimes his adult emotions are too big for it. All the anger and frustration comes out as tears, which only makes Alastor that much angrier. Lucifer tries to offer comfort, to pull Alastor into a hug, but Alastor melts into the shadows before Lucifer can even touch him.

[eterskiescp]

cs pacat is a writing god

Something that I admire about Captive Prince and Pacat's writing as a whole is how truly realistic and multidimensional all the characters feel.

Thank you for listening to my Ted talk

I've seen "realistic" characters as people who have a strong moral flaw, a major weakness, etc, but Pacat takes it to a whole other level. I could write pages on each character and why they do what they do.

Every sentence of dialogue from Damen or Laurent or Nicaise or anyone just feels so...them. Every time Damen starts thinking about Laurent and then shifts over to something else, I understand why. When Will finds out that James has the collar on, I feel his pain. Even if I dont know the personal reasons for why someone would say something, I would still know that that person would say that, because that is what Pacat's writing and thought process does to me.

Sometimes I compare Captive Prince to certain dark academia books, because of how honest it is and how hard it tugs on your heartstrings. The characters are so deeply complex and layered that I can't help but be so damn invested into the characters. Layer on an insane political plot, and you'll be living rent free in my head till the day I die.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

prince's gambit highlights & annotations

chapter 21 & final notes

warning: VERY LONG

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

He had been taken from his suite to a smaller cell and laid out on stone, his body covered by fine linen. Nineteen, thought Damen, and quiet.

the ‘and quiet’ is especially heartbreaking

When a servant had made to enter, Damen had bodily stopped him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No one goes in.’ He had put a two-man guard on the door with those same orders, and cleared out the section—as he had done once before, at the tower. When he had been certain that Laurent had sufficient privacy, he had left to learn all he could about Charcy.

lamen hr complaint #3: preventing other people (servants) from doing their jobs.

also, i like how this again builds on what we’ve seen in previous chapters. damen knows laurent needs time alone to process and think, and he fights to give him that. and then he tries to do some helpful thinking of his own.

‘I’m not Aimeric.’

you tell him damen

‘You ever wonder what it would feel like to find out you’d spread for your brother’s killer?’ Jord looked around the small room. He looked at the place where Aimeric lay. ‘I think it would feel like this.’ Unbidden, remembered words rose up inside him. I don’t care. You’re still my slave tonight. Damen pressed his eyes closed. ‘I wasn’t Damianos last night. I was just—’

it’s all coming together!! all the things i’ve been analyzing!!

also jord seriously laurent is doing this emotional damage to himself, damen’s just along for the ride

‘Just a man?’ said Jord. ‘You think Aimeric thought that? That there were two of him? Because there weren’t. There was only ever one, and look what happened to him.’

but… i think he was conflicted, and felt split. hence the “i’m sorry jord” and killing himself. and “what happened to him” implies a passivity that is patently false. aimeric was more like damen and laurent, psychologically, than jord. who is—sorry jord—honestly just too simple to be dealing with these ridiculous people

He had put those soldiers on the door to bar the way to those men seeking Laurent out for some trivial matter, or for any matter, because when Laurent wanted to be alone, no one should suffer the consequences of interrupting him. The taller soldier addressed him. ‘Commander, no one has entered in your absence.’ Damen’s eyes passed over the doors again. ‘Good,’ he said. And he pushed the doors open.

i LOVE this moment. the subtle humor of it—“when he wants to be alone, nobody should suffer his wrath” to “i’m going in,” because damen knows he can handle laurent’s bitching and that he shouldn’t be alone for too long

...even the table was replenished, with platters of fruit and pitchers of water and of wine...

guy whose job it is to communicate with the fort’s kitchen: yeah uh, can i get a ‘sorry you were disowned, usurped, gifted a severed human head, and then like five minutes later you discovered a suicide’ fruit basket for the prince

‘Come to say goodbye?’ said Laurent.

no you fucking idiot. let yourself be loved.

‘I’m sorry. I know what Nicaise meant to you.’ ‘He was my uncle’s whore,’ said Laurent. ‘He was more than that. You thought of him as—’ ‘A brother?’ said Laurent. ‘But I do not have terribly good luck with those. I hope you are not here for a mawkish display of sentiment. I will throw you out.’

laurent is trying so hard to take back control from this person who so recently saw him in such an intimate context. refusing to believe that he could continue to show damen vulnerability, and it would make him stronger

‘Then you’ll kill them like you killed Nicaise,’ said Damen. ‘By dragging them into this endless, childish bid of yours for your uncle’s attention that you call a fight.’ ‘Get out,’ said Laurent. He had gone white. ‘Is the truth hard to hear?’ ‘I said get out.’ ‘Or do you claim you’re marching to Charcy for some other reason?’

damen calling him on his bullshit! yes!! i love the tenderness between them here, in the pain and the compassion. tenderness is both. they can’t love each other without hurting each other (because lies), they can’t hurt each other without loving each other. there is some twisted romance in understanding someone and being understood so thoroughly that you have the keys to loving and hurting each other in ways no one else can. it’s a very compelling and intimate dynamic, although i am glad that they eventually figure out how to love each other without causing each other pain.

‘You need to beat him at his own game? You want him to see you do it? At the expense of your position and the lives of your men? Are you that desperate for his attention?’ He let his eyes rake up and down Laurent’s form. ‘Well, you have it. Congratulations. You must have loved it that he was obsessed enough with you that he killed his own boy to get at you. You win.’ Laurent took a step back, an almost-swaying motion of a man in the grip of nausea. He stared at Damen, his face hollowed. ‘You don’t know anything,’ Laurent said then, in a cold, terrible voice. ‘You don’t know anything about me. Or my uncle. You’re so blind. You can’t see what’s—right in front of you.’

okay damen you’re completely off-base with that one, but at least your worst-case selection on the dialogue tree has shocked laurent into being more angry at you than at the regent. which, if that was the point… well-played, but also Watch Out

Laurent’s sudden laugh was low and mocking. ‘You want me? You’re my slave?’ He felt himself flush. ‘That’s not going to work.’

and just as expected (?) laurent turns his wrath on a new target. performing cruelty, like he always does when he’s been justifiably called out

‘You want to hear the truth about my uncle? I’ll tell you,’ said Laurent, a new light in his eyes. ‘I’ll tell you what you couldn’t stop. What you were too blind to see. You were in chains while Kastor was cutting down your royal family. Kastor and my uncle.’ He heard it, and he knew not to engage. He knew, and a part of him was aching at what Laurent was doing, even as he heard himself say, ‘What does your uncle have to do with—’

so damen is subjecting himself to this on purpose. they are so messy. but it’s going to work

‘You didn’t guess it was Kastor? You poor dumb brute. Kastor killed the King, then took the city with my uncle’s troops. And all my uncle had to do was to sit back and watch it happen.’ He thought of his father, in a sick bed ringed with physicians, his eyes and cheeks hollowed out, and the room thick with the smell of tallow and of death. He remembered his sense of powerlessness, watching his father slip away, and Kastor, so solicitous, kneeling by his father’s side. ‘Did you know about this?’ ‘Know?’ said Laurent. ‘Everyone knows. I was glad. I just wish I could have seen it happen. I wish I could have seen Damianos when Kastor’s hire-swords came for him. I would have laughed in his face. His father got exactly what he deserved, to die like the animal he was, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it happening. Then again,’ said Laurent, ‘maybe if Theomedes had kept his cock in his wife instead of sticking it in his mistress—’ That was the last thing he said, because Damen hit him. He drove his fist into Laurent’s jaw with all the force of his weight behind it. Knuckles impacted on flesh and bone and Laurent’s head snapped sideways even as he hit the table behind him hard, sending its contents scattering. Metallic platters crashed against tile, a mess of spilt wine and strewn food. Laurent clutched the table with the arm that he’d flung out instinctively to stop his fall.

a couple things to note here:

goddamn laurent. dude.

but at least he remembered to keep up the lie in his uncontrolled spite-filled monologue

veretian heterophobia/anti-bastardry on full display

not the fruit plate…

my ex wife still misses me, but her aim is getting better

Damen was breathing hard, his hands clenched into fists. How dare you talk that way about my father. The words were on his lips. His mind pulsed and throbbed.

hey damen, remember a few chapters ago when you were thinking about how you didn’t want to be like your father? not that kind of king? interesting

Laurent pushed himself up and gave Damen a look glittering with triumph, even as he dragged the back of his right hand across his mouth, where his lips were smeared with blood.

he’s insane. amazing character. 10/10

The doors behind him opened, and Damen knew without turning around that the sound had summoned the soldiers into the room. He didn’t take his eyes off Laurent. ‘Arrest me,’ said Damen. ‘I have raised hands to the Prince.’ The soldiers hesitated. It was the just response to his actions but he was—or had been—their Captain. He had to say again, ‘Do it.’ The darker-haired soldier stepped forward and Damen felt the grip take him. Laurent set his jaw. ‘No,’ said Laurent. And then, ‘It was provoked.’ Another hesitation. It was clear that the two soldiers did not know what to make of what they had walked into. The air of violence was heavy in the room, where their Prince stood in front of a ruined table, with blood welling from his lip. ‘I said let him go.’ It was a direct order from their Prince, and this time it was obeyed.

LAMEN HR COMPLAINT #4. UNNAMED SOLDIERS. i don’t even know how to label this one. but it definitely justifies a complaint. one of my favorite lamen hr complaints in the entire series

‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t go to Charcy. I need to convince you of that.’ Laurent’s laugh was a strange, breathless sound. ‘Didn’t you hear anything that I just said to you?’ ‘Yes,’ said Damen. ‘You tried to hurt me, and you have. I wish you would see that what you have just done to me is what your uncle is doing to you.’ He saw Laurent receive that like a man at the very ends of his endurance being given another hit. ‘Why,’ said Laurent, ‘do you—do you always—’ He stopped himself. The rise and fall of his chest was shallow.

laurent at his weakest and most vulnerable makes my heart ACHE

‘I can’t.’ It was a raw admission. ‘I can’t think.’ The words were torn out of him. Wide-eyed in the silence, Laurent said them again in a different voice, his blue eyes dark with the exposure of the truth. ‘I can’t think.’ ‘I know,’ said Damen. He said it softly. There was more than one admission in Laurent’s words. He knew that too.

this made me tear up the first time i read it. laurent’s reaction here comes scarily close to some personal stuff for me, except i didn’t have anyone to say “i know” and comfort me. i’m glad laurent isn’t alone. it’s a little self-indulgent to imagine that someone could be loved like this in real life, but at least it happens on the page. and it took a real person to write it happening on the page—it didn’t just show up there on its own. that matters, and it’s part of why i find gratification in engaging intellectually and emotionally with fiction.

‘Don’t go,’ said Laurent, quietly. ‘I’m just clearing my head. I already told my escort I wouldn’t need them until morning,’ said Damen. And there was another awful silence, as Damen realised what Laurent was asking him. ‘No. I don’t mean—forever—just—’ Laurent broke off. ‘Three days.’ Laurent said it as though producing from the depths the answer to a painstakingly weighed question. ‘I can do this alone. I know I can. It’s only that right now I can’t seem to . . . think, and I can’t . . . trust anyone else to stand up to me when I’m . . . like this. If you could give me three days, I—’ He forcibly cut himself off. ‘I’ll stay,’ said Damen. ‘You know I’ll stay for as long as you—’ ‘Don’t,’ said Laurent. ‘Don’t lie to me. Not you.’ ‘I’ll stay,’ said Damen. ‘Three days. After that, I ride south.’

laurent not wanting damen to promise anything more than three days is so painful to read, but it also rings true. laurent knows he couldn’t stand to see that promise broken (“not you”), and he also knows that he can’t keep his lie from damen forever. laurent probably even thinks, despite everything between them, that damen might not even want him after he figures it out. but he needs him here now, in order to survive this and clear his head. so three more days.

damen agreeing to ride south in three days is a mercy, and i think also probably a lie. but he knows it’s what laurent wants and needs to hear, and that laurent is incredibly vulnerable at the moment. damen gives him what he (laurent) thinks he needs (damen leaving), while also giving him what he actually needs (damen staying), for three days at least.

Laurent nodded. After a moment, Damen came back to rest against the table beside Laurent. He watched Laurent find his way back to himself. Eventually, Laurent began to talk, the words precise and quite steady. ‘You’re right. I killed Nicaise when I left it half done. I should have either stayed away from him, or broken his faith in my uncle. I didn’t plan it out, I left it to chance. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking about him like that. I just . . . I just liked him.’ Underneath the cold, analytical words, there was also something bewildered.

really good depiction of someone coming back from a panic attack/breakdown. again, it hits. the “coming back to himself,” the way he slides back into steady precise assessment of the situation… yeah

It was awful. ‘I should never have—said that. Nicaise made a choice. He spoke up for you because you were his friend, and that is not something you should regret.’

oh this whole thing kind of foreshadows how laurent sacrifices himself for damen in book 3, huh? he does the exact opposite of what damen is telling him here, except instead of nicaise making a choice it's damen. damen makes the choice to care about laurent, over and over again, and laurent can’t regret that FOR him. laurent shouldn’t feel like he needs to free damen of his burden of caring, or protect damen from the consequences of his own attachment. but laurent is going to try to do exactly that, in book 3, especially with his “failure” of nicaise in mind. and he’s kind of doing it now, too, by insisting that damen can’t stay with him after charcy.

laurent shows love by caring for others in the ways he knows how to care for himself. it’s a silly parallel to make, but it’s like how he brought damen a towel after the sex scene, even though damen didn’t have the urge to be clean that laurent so pressingly experienced. laurent knows how to suffer alone and how to strategically use his abilities to survive. he channels this experience to serve the people and causes he loves, even if the gesture is misunderstood or it's done at his own expense.

back to book 3: damen attacks the regent in laurent's honor. laurent submits himself to the regent's retaliation in his place. not only because he loves damen and wants to protect him, but also because he blames himself for getting damen into the situation at all. because he allowed himself to be loved by damen, damen was in danger. laurent regrets that on damen's behalf and tries to suffer the consequences instead. something he hadn't thought to do, or been able to do, for nicaise.

laurent does have a bleeding heart—so much so, that he can’t possibly wear it on his sleeve. he believes that he can't help anyone, can't maintain precious stability, if he has made himself vulnerable to love and harm alike. what he does best is survive, use others, and allow himself to be used. his hypervigilance ensures that this is all under his own careful control, even when it appears otherwise. because when laurent loses control, he gets hurt and hurts others. see the regent taking advantage of him after auguste's death for an example of the former, and aimeric's suicide for an example of the latter.

laurent has a private and complicated code of ethics and honor, based on compassion for the disempowered and a thirst for justice. his apparent ruthless pragmatism is part performance, part necessary adaptation, and part realistic means of reaching those idealistic ends. as a disempowered victim of repeated injustices, he is sensitive in a way a person with different experiences might not be. sometimes that means he lashes out, like with aimeric. but in his best moments, it means that he fights and cares with unmatched fierceness. and with someone like damen at his side, and an eventual peaceful life in which he can reflect, laurent can grow to harness that passion without hurting others or himself in the process.

(my note-taking drifted away from text analysis here, and turned into a more personal meditation on real life and fiction. honestly i'd recommend revisiting the original quote to remember what the hell i'm even talking about. please skip to the next quote if you're not interested.)

i don't know if people like damen really exist, or if people like damen even should exist. after all, he puts up with a lot, way more than would be considered healthy or safe by modern standards or even canon standards. maybe damen's existence as a character is purely wish fulfillment for people who relate to laurent. it's probably unreasonable to expect to be loved by someone so patient and devoted. the reality is, while the kernels of what make this ship resonant and desirable may be found in a real relationship, no real relationship will be quite as resonant or desirable as an intentionally-written work of fiction.

the following sentiment is the most personal i intend to get in these notes. it's not super related to the book and it isn't necessarily relevant to anyone but me. but it does create a smoother transition to the next paragraph, so i'll keep it in.

i haven’t had the privilege of experiencing romantic love that hasn’t hurt. and while love and hurt come hand-in-hand, i have historically been offered very little comfort or consideration by people i have trusted with the most vulnerable parts of myself. which means that i am very well-practiced in caring for myself, alone.

i don't know if damens are real, and i don't want to count on it. i'll care for me instead, because i believe that i'm worth caring for.

i think that firm belief, that i am worth caring for, has a lot to do with the way i interact with stories. that's the reason why i find analyzing resonant fiction like capri so personally gratifying. even though the characters aren't real, the fact that their stories have been told at all makes me feel less alone. because someone had to care enough about it, about them, to bother to write it all down. real stories have this effect too, if resonant—history or poetry or memoir, the same principle still applies.

through analyzing the stories that i care so deeply about, i am tricked into believing that i owe myself the same compassion and consideration that i show the people within them. because if i relate to a character, and i want them to be happy and loved, then that must mean that i want me to be happy and loved too. and beyond projection, i get to learn things about people who aren't like me at all, and countless worlds outside my own. in that respect, thinking about stories helps me strengthen my own moral code and widen my perspective. and honestly, more than anything else, it just feels good to do something with it all.

... which is why i am doing this, for free, for hours, for fun.

‘He spoke up for me because he didn’t think my uncle would hurt him. None of them do. They think he loves them. It has the outward semblance of love. At first. But it isn’t love. It’s . . . fetish. It doesn’t outlast adolescence. The boys themselves are disposable.’

something something, akielion slavery. keeping people in a permanent state of arrested development, stripping them of their ability to advocate for themselves like adults, making them into interchangeable objects who unconditionally love their position and trust their masters. but it isn’t love, nor is it fetish—it’s grooming, and it's evil. just like the regent, with every single one of his victims.

laurent knows damn well that it's far worse than just fetish. he knows it for the slaves and for the regent's young victims. but he can't verbalize it here, because that would mean admitting (privately, implied) that evil has been done to himself as well.

i don’t think laurent views himself as innocent in the same way he viewed nicaise, or the other victims, or the akielion slaves. his desire for justice is not on his own behalf, and it never really has been. in various instances, it’s been about justice for auguste, damen, jord, and nicaise… but never for laurent himself. to laurent, it’s evil when the regent hurts all of the other boys—but when it was him, it was only fetish. and laurent understands that to the regent, with any of his victims, it is only fetish. not love or evil. even though the regent's boys believe it's love, even though laurent can rationally recognize that it's evil, it doesn't matter when the regent is still in power. and on a personal level, regarding his own experiences with his uncle, some part of laurent is still groomed into thinking he specifically deserves abuse.

Damen knew better than to reach out, or to try to touch him.

i love seeing moments like these. comfort isn't one-size-fits-all.

He watched Laurent’s face, the flickering of some internal truth behind the careful lack of all expression. ‘He was on my side,’ said Laurent. ‘But in the end, the only person on his side was him.’

don’t make the same mistake, laurent, assuming that damen isn’t on your side. oh fuck he can’t hear me.

‘You liked him.’ ‘My uncle cultivated the worst in him. He still had good instincts sometimes. When children are moulded that young, it takes time to undo. I thought . . .’ Softly, ‘You thought you could help him.’

see previous analysis re: laurent, grooming, regent, etc.

It was with a shock that he felt the touch of Laurent’s fingers against the back of his wrist. He thought it a gesture of comfort, a caress, and then he realised that Laurent was shifting the fabric of his sleeve, sliding it back slightly to reveal the gold underneath, until the wrist-cuff he had asked the blacksmith to leave on was exposed between them. ‘Sentiment?’ said Laurent. ‘Something like that.’ Their eyes met and he could feel each beat of his heart. A few seconds of silence, a space that lengthened, until Laurent spoke. ‘You should give me the other.’ Damen flushed slowly, heat spreading from his chest over his skin, his heartbeats intrusive. He tried to answer in a normal voice. ‘I can’t imagine you’d wear it.’ ‘To keep. I wouldn’t wear it,’ said Laurent, ‘though I don’t believe your imagination is having any difficulty with the idea.’

foreshadowing this in book 3, except it happens in the most petty insane way possible

Damen let out a soft, unsteady breath of laughter, because he was right. For a while they sat together in comfortable silence. Laurent had mostly returned to himself, his posture more casual, his weight leaned back on his arms, watching Damen as he sometimes did. But he was a new version of himself, stripped back, youthful, a little quieter, and Damen realised he was seeing Laurent with his defences lowered—one or two of them, anyway. There was an untried, fragile feeling to the experience.

<3

‘I should not have told you in the manner I did about Kastor.’ The words were quiet. Red wine was seeping into the tiles of the floor. He heard himself ask it. ‘Did you mean what you said? That you were glad.’ ‘Yes,’ said Laurent. ‘They killed my family.’

i love that he doesn’t lie here. because yeah.

The truth was so close in this room that it seemed for a moment that he would say it, say his own name to Laurent, and the closeness of it seemed to press down on him, because they had both lost family.

honestly cannot tell if it would have made things better or worse for him to tell the truth now. guess we'll never know

Because throw Laurent together with Damianos, and either one would kill the other, or, if Damen kept his identity concealed and they somehow managed to form an alliance . . . if he helped Laurent instead of hurting him, and Laurent, out of the deep-buried sense of fairness that existed within him, helped him in turn . . . if the foundation of trust was built between them so that they might become friends, or more than friends . . . if Laurent ever decided to make use of his bed slave . . . He thought about the Regent’s suggestions to him, sly, subtle. Laurent could benefit from a steadying influence, someone close to him with his best interests at heart. A man with sound judgement, who could help guide him without being swayed. And the constant, pervasive insinuation: Have you taken my nephew? My uncle knows that when I lose control, I make mistakes. It would have given him a perverse kind of pleasure to send Aimeric to work against me, Laurent had said. How much greater the twisted pleasure to be gleaned from this?

regent thought he was being clever but he actually just preordered his own defeat

‘I’ve listened to everything that you said to me,’ Laurent was saying. ‘I’m not going to rush off to Charcy with an army. But I still want to fight. Not because my uncle threw down a challenge, but on my own terms, because this is my country. I know that together we can find a way to use Charcy to my advantage. Together we can do what we cannot do apart.’

“together we can do what we can’t do apart” THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING

also warning, i forget the details of laurent’s whole charcy plan. so there’s probably context where i’m missing it. but i’m still looking out for double meanings etc

(note from post-reading sam: yeah you're about to see me realizing and processing things in real time, just hang in there i figure it out eventually)

‘My uncle plans everything,’ said Laurent, as though reading Damen’s thoughts. ‘He plans for victory and he plans for defeat. It was you who never quite fit . . . You’ve always been outside of his schemes. For everything that my uncle and Kastor planned,’ said Laurent, as Damen felt himself grow cold, ‘they had no idea what they did when they gifted me with you.’

i love that he says this, knowing who damen is. it just makes me happy. i think laurent is already Scheming at this point, and probably weighing the ways he can blindside damen or screw him over. “together we can do things…” doesn’t necessarily mean that they can make it happen as a team. damen is a useful piece to play strategically, though, and that way of regarding him means laurent conveniently doesn’t have to think about the intimate night they just shared or the two people who just died tragically who both parallel his own experiences

In a fort full of activity, he knew himself a game piece, and was only beginning to be able to glimpse the scope of the board.

truer than you think. although UGH i wish i could remember the exact sequence, i’m not sure if laurent is scheming to screw him over yet. i kinda forget how we arrive at “hello lover” because laurent knows damen is who he is, but i don’t think he’s being dishonest with his feelings. maybe it’s just that, once the reality is undeniable, laurent feels regret and shame about loving his brother’s killer, and massively course-corrects in the opposite direction by being cruel. maybe he doesn’t want to appear weak or compromised for having engaged with the akielion prince in the way he did, so he has to pretend that it wasn’t real. also he gets tortured, which probably doesn’t help. and the plot has to keep plotting and the conflict has to keep conflicting.

did laurent see charcy coming prior to nicaise? again, i forget. but i’m keeping an eye out for it now. i think his plans are all being made last-second, but i could be wrong.

(post-reading sam again: i was wrong.)

Jord was right. He had owed Laurent the truth, and he hadn’t given it to him. And now he knew what the consequences of that choice might be. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret what they had done: last night had been bright in a way that resisted tarnishing. It had been right. His heart beat with the feeling that the other truth must somehow change to make it right, and he knew that it wouldn’t.

yeah ngl damen i get why you didn’t say it but if i was laurent i’d be pissed. like i wonder if laurent was waiting the whole time for damen to just Say It, and the fact that he didn’t made damen lose the moral arbitration he didn’t even know he was subject to. THAT would explain laurent’s attitude at charcy. this was a test and damen failed. and while they both should just fucking talk to each other and laurent is insane for keeping this bit going for so long, i do understand why he’d feel disappointed and betrayed by damen’s lack of honesty, especially given the other ways damen has proven himself loyal and true. so it’s easier for laurent to use him and screw him over, in a way, because he can tell himself that damen’s just been using and screwing him too.

He imagined himself nineteen again, knowing then what he knew now, and he wondered if he would have let that long-ago battle fall to the Veretians—let Auguste live. If he would have ignored his father’s call to arms altogether, and instead found his way to the Veretian tents and sought out Auguste to find some common ground. Laurent would have been thirteen but in Damen’s mind’s eye he would have found him a little older, sixteen or seventeen, old enough that Damen’s nineteen-year-old self could have begun, with all the exuberance of youth, to court him.

damen: i think i’ve changed enough as a person that if i went back in time, i’d make a different ethical choice about the life or death of another person. and that’s cool and all, but ALSO i’d get to court laurent !!!!! :D

And if he couldn’t give Laurent the truth, he could use everything else he had to give Laurent a definitive victory in the south.

i mean you still could. you very much still could. you can have a kingdom AND this, you just have to communicate with laurent. but go and do the other thing i guess.

to be fair, damen doesn’t know that laurent knows. i’m being too harsh. if laurent truly didn’t know, this would make a lot more sense. the truth would make him far too upset to fight with a clear mind, and damen understands that laurent is more likely to screw up when he loses his mind. damen wants laurent to be safe and to win, so he withholds the truth that could destroy him. to a first-time reader, it makes total sense, and it keeps the tension going. i think that’s partially why i didn’t anticipate the twist—so much of the tension hinges on something being true (laurent doesn’t know), so it made the most sense to me that something with this much attention placed on it MUST be true. but it’s perhaps even more interesting and compelling to know on a re-read that it’s not true, that laurent does know, because it gives me a lot of things to re-contextualize.

the only downside is that it’s also just incredibly frustrating, now that i’m not on board emotionally with damen and the lie that creates the tension here. that doesn’t mean the writing is bad, but the feeling i get reading it is VERY different from how i felt the first time around. oh my god is that how laurent has felt this whole time. like he’s taking part in his own love story but he can’t fully actively buy into it or participate, because he knows something that jeopardizes the love story so dramatically that he can’t call it a love story at all. oh my god.

like, damen is in a romance story. there are politics and drama and adventure, but that is main genre of his narrative. he always tends to focus on romantic aspects of a situation. and the first time we read the series, we only perceive their love story from damen’s pov. we can’t even begin to guess what’s going on with laurent, because we think he’s clueless about this big lie, and so we kind of just make do with his dialogue and damen’s observations.

but laurent isn’t just the love interest in damen’s narrative. in laurent's narrative, he is the main character of a fucking psychological thriller, and has been this whole time. king’s rising is where damen (and the reader) finally get a sense of the genre/reality laurent has been living in thus far, because the truth comes out and laurent can now make it damen’s problem. but it's always been happening, in laurent's head.

There had been a silence, until Laurent had said, ‘You were right. I haven’t been thinking about it like this.’ ‘Like what?’ said Damen. ‘Like war,’ said Laurent.

it's the game he likes. not war

Now they faced one another on the dais and words rose to Damen’s lips, personal words. But what he said was, ‘Are you sure you want to leave your enemy in charge of your fort?’

do they ever say “i love you” on the page? i seem to recall an absence of that—which i don’t exactly mind in their case, because it’s pretty obvious they love each other by the end, and so much is left between the lines with them anyway. but i do wonder if damen had the urge to say some variation of the sentiment here, before chickening out and going for a snarky comment instead

They gazed at one another. It was a public goodbye, in full view of the men. Laurent extended his hand. He did it not, as a prince might, for Damen to kneel and kiss, but as a friend. There was acknowledgement in the gesture, and as Damen took his hand, in front of the men, Laurent held his gaze. Laurent said, ‘Take care of my fort, Commander.’ In public, there was nothing he could say. He felt his grip tighten slightly. He thought of stepping forward, of taking Laurent’s head in his hands. And then he thought of what he was, and all he now knew. And he forced himself to release his grip.

foreshadowing book 3. they can’t interact with each other with the same ease, intimacy, and privacy that they had as “master” and “slave” when they’re both recognized as capable leaders in the public eye.

(they fail miserably at this, though, especially in early-to-mid book 3 after the reveal. like they really just put themselves in a lose-lose situation: they “can’t” be in love or trust each other, but they are also so obsessed with each other that what they end up doing in the public eye is ten times weirder and less convenient for everyone else than if they just made up and were in love as well as commanding an army.)

Laurent was nodding to his attendant, mounting his horse. Damen said, ‘A lot depends on timing. We have a rendezvous in two days. I—Don’t be late.’ ‘Trust me,’ said Laurent with a single bright glance, straightening his horse out with the tug of a rein in the moment before the order was called, and he and his men moved out.

okay, so here’s what’s actually going on with the war shit, because i’m determined to keep track of it this time instead of just focusing on the emotions.

laurent is riding out to fortaine, which is the fort that guion runs, and the likely source of the regent’s promised troops at nearby charcy. this is a good plan because laurent taking fortaine fucks up the regent’s plan AND it gives laurent access to the resources necessary to continue fighting.

damen, meanwhile, will literally hold down the fort here in ravenel. laurent trusts him to do this. laurent has taken most of the soldiers, leaving damen with not many men if there was to be a surprise attack here.

they have an important rendezvous set in two days’ time, although i’m unsure where exactly they’ve agreed to meet. i’m going to assume fortaine or charcy, not back here in ravenel. i think since damen says “don’t be late,” the intention is for them both to show up at charcy with their men—for damen to leave ravenel in 1.5 days after preparing the fighters as best as he can—and fight the regent’s forces with their combined army. so it makes sense that damen would say "don't be late," because if he showed up alone with his men, they'd probably get slaughtered.

SO. this is what i remember actually happening:

laurent does not, in fact, show up for the rendezvous in two days, leaving damen to handle charcy alone

instead, laurent takes fortaine and just kind of chills there. damen eventually shows up after winning charcy, leading to the "hello lover" scene

laurent explains the situation to damen as if he (laurent) intentionally stood him up, as retribution for the truth damen has been keeping from him this whole time

BUT laurent is leaving out that he ended up being kidnapped and tortured by guion before killing a man with a chair and just barely managing to take the fort. or something. and govart is there too.

so my question is, does laurent at this exact moment already mean to stand damen up? or is the "hello lover" thing a way for him to cover up the fact that he got captured and tortured and almost lost everything? both things are probably true, which would kind of prove damen's point from the end of this book: laurent makes riskier choices without his input, and there are certain risks laurent shouldn't take because his life and safety matter. but mr "probably" laurent doesn't value his own life and safety very much, especially not if there's a possibility of winning the game. if laurent doesn't allow damen to look out for him, laurent is going to endanger himself.

my guess is that it's both: laurent fully intends to stand damen up at this point, but doesn't anticipate the consequence of his own manipulative bullshit. blindsiding damen will result in laurent's torture, capture, and near-death. despite technically winning the insane mind game against the damianos in his head, laurent will still need to save face with the damen in his tent. because he knows damen was right, and he hates it.

definitely revisiting this note when i read the "hello, lover" scene to see how i did ;)

addition to the note from sam reading two pages ahead: at some point laurent has also gotten akielions involved because he knows their presence will force damen to out himself as damianos. like he’s showing his hand in a way that screws damen over but also doesn’t necessarily get him killed, and most absurdly, STILL KEEPS THE LIE THAT LAURENT DOESN’T KNOW HE’S DAMIANOS GOING, making damen even more guilty and paranoid, and a first-time reader even more compelled by the tension. it happens as the cliffhanger for this book and before charcy, so the events at charcy stay open-ended to a first-time reader.

i hope we find out eventually if laurent planned all of this after they fucked, or if it had already been set in motion before and he just committed to the bit he’d already started. would the fucking have made a difference? probably not. laurent and damen are a cat and a mouse, but laurent thinks they’re a figurative cat and mouse in a psychological thriller who intentionally torment each other, and damen thinks they’re a cat and mouse in a disney movie who fall in love despite their differences. the rare moments where they step into each other’s genres are so rewarding and impactful because they’re so rare. if it happened more often, and during every pivotal moment like this one, it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful when they finally figure out their shit. “a kingdom or this” is an interesting tagline because of the “or.” if it was “and” from the beginning of the story, there wouldn’t be a story to tell. certainly not one as well-written and unique as this. pacat really is a master of writerly restraint, and i could learn a lot from her approach to story construction.

Because it was not possible, no matter what was said, to completely trust Laurent, the morning was a thin skein of tension, drawn tight.

lmao

‘Akielons are marching on us,’ he expected the runner to say, and he did, but then he said, ‘I’m to give this to the fort Commander,’ and he was urgently pressing something into Damen’s hand. Damen stared at it. Behind him, the Akielon army was approaching. In his hand was a hard loop of metal set with a carved gemstone, the etching a starburst. He was looking at Laurent’s signet ring.

oh my god he’s such a BITCH. this has been in motion since the start, and he hasn’t stopped it even though they fell in love. laurent i’m obsessed with your mind. get help.

He remembered the night Laurent had addressed him in Akielon for the first time, remembered long nights speaking in Akielon, Laurent shoring up his vocabulary, improving his fluency, and his choice of subject matter—border geography, treaties, troop movements. He said it as it opened up inside him, ‘They are our reinforcements.’

right logical path, technically right conclusion, but you are missing the additional reveal here so bad 😭 it’s okay buddy i missed it too the first time 😭

The truth was marching towards him.

LMAOOOOOOOOOOO great line. great line for people who Get It and people who don’t. the truth = damianos, yeah, but also the truth = laurent knew. but damen only means the first truth, and the cliffhanger works so well because the reader might not know the second truth either. which i think is the ideal initial experience!

The Regent had been right, people were saying: Laurent had been in league with Akielos all along. It was a strange kind of madness to realise that this, in fact, was true.

context: the regent and laurent were both in league with akielos, just different pieces of it. regent teamed up with kastor, and laurent made contact with nikandros. it makes sense, since delpha is so close to acquitart/vere (i don’t know if i spelled that right) and they share relations with vaskians

this does make nikandros' burning hatred of laurent in book 3 like exponentially funnier though

He could feel the tension of the Akielon forces too, knew they were expecting treachery. The first sword drawn, the first arrow loosed, would unleash a killing force.

so what exactly did laurent say to convince them to come? i get that he meant for them to get here and be jumpscared by their dead prince, but what was the fake reason? just like a vague call for help/solidarity? do the akielons think it’s a trap, or did they come here to attack? it must be the first thing, if the signet is being presented. god this makes my head hurt but i am determined to explore every little nook and cranny of laurent’s insane political rube goldberg machine it’s like enrichment to me

also, holy fucking shit. if laurent always knew this was going to happen, because he set it into motion a while ago, then his comments about having one more night with damen hit so much harder. not only did he know he was going to lose damen, but he also knew that he had arranged things so that damen wouldn’t even have a choice in staying. he was always going to be exposed as a prince, and returned to his former station, and separated from laurent, no matter what. laurent had initially assumed, for good reason, that damen wouldn’t ever want to stay. but throughout this book that assumption has been challenged, over and over again. but laurent couldn’t just take back the messenger by the time they were getting really close. laurent failsafed this shit from the start, so that even if he started to spiral into cognitive dissonance, reality would inevitably arrive to snap him out of it.

laurent has put himself in a hell of his own design, and unlike previous laurent purgatories, this one wasn't on purpose. the intention had been to free himself of his brother’s killer, who his uncle placed in his life as a means of tormenting him. but instead, laurent’s gambit ends up ensuring that the only living person who truly loves him has no choice but to leave.

truly putting the “L” in laurent.

final notes

damen likes blondes mentions: 6 -> 8

laurent leans: 9 -> 11

lamen hr complaints: 4

(i started an ointment joke tally in like chapter one but it never came up again so it doesn't count)

character elements to watch out for (from book 1):

laurent perspective context (knowing what i know, what sense can i make?)

laurent & nicaise

laurent coping mechanisms (pretending, delusion)

damen coping mechanisms (avoidance, distraction)

damen reconsidering the ethics of akielos

mutual moral arbitration

new for book 2:

laurent intimacy depiction

damen's relationship with his father's legacy

damen comparing his current self to himself before vere

laurent and damen are living in two entirely different genres

series themes (from book 1): 

niceness vs. goodness

submission vs. respect - “there is no honour in obedience”

suffering alone vs. fighting together

pain and humor

honor and integrity

sex, power, innocence, violence

trauma, desire, consent

new for book 2:

a kingdom or this

multifaceted tenderness

[merrivia]

A little while ago, I posted a question about puzzling lines in Captive Prince here.

Specifically this line where Nicaise reacts in horror to the idea that Laurent might tell the Regent that he wants him:

This has clearly been humming away in my subconscious for a while as I woke up this morning with a feeling of clarity.

Pacat nearly always layers her meanings and purposes, especially when it comes to Laurent. There’s always more than one thing going on.

Laurent knew that what would wreck Nicaise is: 1) that if the Regent knew Laurent wanted Nicaise, he would never let him go or allow Laurent to have him. He’d keep him as a pet in name only, out of spite, and have no interest in him, leaving Nicaise abandoned and hurt and alone, but trapped with no escape, no alternative path where he could heal and grow. And 2) it would wreck Nicaise to have to actually choose between the Regent and Laurent...

My take on it is: Laurent likes Nicaise. He’s probably watched him grow over the last three years and seen him go from young and innocent, to being fundamentally changed by abuse. Not irrevocably at this point though. Laurent gives Nicaise hope that there is a life for him after the Regent abandons him, and underneath that poor, bitchy, twisted, manipulative surface, Nicaise actually likes Laurent, maybe even loves him. Enough to be startled and put out by Damen having seen Laurent naked (not because I think he is jealous or finds Laurent attractive in that sense but because he secretly wants a closeness and intimacy with Laurent and doesn’t really know how that works with older males unless it’s sexual). Enough to steal the letter, and to risk his life defending Laurent.

Laurent has an unsettling ability to penetrate most people’s psychology; when he says he left it “half-done” with Nicaise, he knows he was halfway there to winning Nicaise completely to his side, while the other half still clung desperately to the Regent. Nicaise is no foolish Aimeric, trauma leading to him holding on to the delusion of love, but he is young and frightened and unsure of what the future will hold for him. Laurent offered hope, and understanding. The two had so many similarities in how they learned to cope with abuse of this kind. I think, especially through Laurent making it clear that he wouldn’t want him in his bed, Nicaise was slowly but surely beginning to see Laurent as an older brother figure, someone who cared for him and saw him as more that just his pretty face.

The Regent used Nicaise in a casual manner; as messenger and errand boy as well as pet, but we never see Nicaise deployed fully against Laurent by the Regent against his will. The trick with the slaves came from Nicaise and his need for oneupmanship with Laurent (as part of the games they played with one another which actually are also the way the two of them express intimacy), not wholly from the Regent per se.

If Nicaise truly had to choose the Regent over Laurent, that would be one thing that could wreck him. To choose between the only person who has shown him ‘love’ but ruined him vs the person he’s afraid to love but offers him hope. I think Laurent thinks Nicaise would turn away from him if so, and that would wreck the boy as he would be forced to burn to ashes the one relationship which gave him value outside of sex, irrevocably damaging him.

And as for what would happen if the Regent retained Nicaise as a pet but ignored him otherwise? This would also wreck him entirely, a) because he still thinks the Regent cares for him on some level and as Laurent well knows, abandonment by the Regent hurts, and he would have no chance to move on properly, stuck in a non-relationship with him (like...Laurent himsef) and b) his entire purpose and value being based around sexual worth as a pet, and then having that taken away. One of the worst, most horrifying things about Captive Prince for me, is how Audin is mistaken by Damen as a relative of Nicaise and then casually offers him up to Damen as a sexual reward. How many others do that? Pimp Nicaise out, even though he’s the Regent’s favoured pet? What would happen to him if he then fell from favour- how would he be used and abused? Especially as sharp-tongued bitchy Nicaise is protected by association, and that would go. What would happen to his psyche then? And layered on top of that is the fact that Laurent always hoped he could help Nicaise be better. After Nicaise’s death, this conversation between Laurent and Damen makes that clear:

Laurent wanted to help Nicaise to heal and to show him he has value outside of his looks. Laurent always had the memory of Auguste to help him and understood that having one person’s love (even after death), one figure like an older brother, can be enough to save you from becoming the worst person you’re capable of being. With Laurent’s influence gone from Nicaise’s life, trapped by the Regent’s side, I think he would have been wrecked and Laurent can see that clearly.

[wimbledon2008]

so i just finished the captive prince series about a week ago and am rereading it now. just finished the hello lover scene and honestly im still so confused over what's going on in laurent's head lmao like??

was he previously compartmentalizing his resentment so well that real feelings developed, but now he finally has a chance to truly let his anger out, he's locking down the positive feelings?

was he being truthful about manipulating damen the whole time (highly unlikely to me)? or was the cruelty in and of itself a play, either to push damen away despite not actually wanting to, or some other convoluted reason? bc damen really would have done anything he asked, trying to outmaneuver him like that was unnecessary.

my first theory feels the most right to me, and he just needed more time to process and purge his desire for revenge but idk im a taurus and very akielon coded. i love laurent but i do not understand that man lol

okay, disclaimer, i haven't read the books in quite some time so this probably isn't the fullest or deepest analysis. i welcome any additions or corrections from those who are better at meta than me <3

so the hello lover scene is incredibly complex and nuanced, a standard of pacat's writing that makes his works so infinitely re-readable. based on my personal understanding of the scene, there are a few key things that help to explain why laurent behaves the way he does in the tent scene:

1. laurent needs damen and the akielons to win against his uncle, which he very much wants to do. charcy didn't go how he'd originally planned, and he knows damen is pissed about it and probably thinks the worst of laurent right now - that he intentionally abandoned the akielons at charcy for his own purposes. so laurent is being manipulative; he is trying to outmaneuver damen. because what damen says is true: laurent has no allies, no friends, he's ruined his reputation by aligning himself with akielos, etc. we as the readers know that damen cares deeply for laurent and wouldn't just abandon him, and if laurent simply explained what happened and asked damen to help him, damen wouldn't hesitate to stay at his side. but laurent doesn't think damen has any reason to trust him, so laurent can't trust damen either. so instead of being honest, he chooses to be cold-blooded, to assert control over the situation and force damen's hand to ensure that the alliance he worked so hard to establish stays intact. he could've just asked, but this is laurent, and there are other factors at play, such as the fact that

2. laurent is already in love with damen by the tent scene, or at least most of the way there. but laurent can no longer pretend damen is anyone other than the person who killed his brother. damen walks into that tent as prince damianos, in full akielon regalia, covered in blood, with a sword. laurent has been doing some aggressive compartmentalizing, especially in order to have allowed himself to sleep with damen. who killed his brother, which was the inciting incident that made laurent's life a living hell. laurent has not forgiven damen for auguste, and he's having to really confront that hatred and anger for maybe the first time since the first book. and laurent is also punishing himself for caring for and sleeping with damen, his brother's killer. can you even imagine? it's better not to. laurent probably hates himself as much as he hates damianos in that moment. so he shoves all those glimmering, positive feelings down because he wants to hurt damen, and himself too. and none of this is particularly rational because

3. laurent is very upset at the beginning of king's rising. this is an understatement. he's still reeling from nicaise's death, which he blames himself for, he's losing damen, the only person he trusted, he was recently stabbed, and everything is spiraling out of his tightly held control. and when laurent is upset he's cruel. he's not at his best in the tent scene. he's clinging to his own self-preservation, and he's making it up as he goes along because whatever his original plan was got blown to hell, which is clear because he's saying shit that doesn't even make sense. see, e.g., this post about him allegedly enduring damen's "fumbling attentions" to win a battle he didn't even know about at the time. while laurent is being cold and ruthless to secure his position as best he can (see no. 1), he's also acting from a place of emotion instead of strict rationality, which is how he typically operates, and how he prefers to act. he's on the defensive, he's deeply confused and unable to cope with all of his conflicting feelings about damen, and he's lashing out - protecting himself before damen can hurt him first. and then damen literally sticks his thumb in his stab wound. basically: our boy laurent's going through it in a major way.

going back and re-reading your message i realize i've essentially just reiterated everything you initially said but with a lot of extra words. so i guess the long and short of it is: you're right. honestly there are so many ways to interpret the tent scene and everything else laurent says and does, which is what makes him so fascinating! so thanks for giving me the opportunity to dive back into his psyche for a little while <3

[darkfictionjude]

I forgor my crowny's name I think it's Oliver (Oli) or maybe Nicaise (Nico) or something else idk.

He generally leans toward the apathetic/quiet/dissociative kind of choices except with Sally whom he is overly dependent on and Lorcan who is antagonistically being romanced (because I really like the mirror of that one line that says something like 'he seems so alive when you fight' with a crowny that does the same) he doesn't really trust Imre but doesn't really feel the need to trust him either so there isn't really any animosity in that. Crowny's more curious about why Nia ghosted him in a way that the hurt he feels is overshadowed in a way he doesn't really notice it.

My favorite scenes are shouting 'they're my friends' at sally and going to Garrett's house getting defensive over Lorcan and then going to the arcade. I think the spur of the moment blowing up in defense of people you haven't realized you care about is a sweet glimpse into Crowny's development

For Orla I don't think Crowny feels hatred for her; more of an acceptance of her hate marking them as 'enemies'. I tend to read some curiosity in the scenes where Crowny is listening to her pace in the room in a similar vein as with Nia.

As for the Orla-Lorcan thing I don't think Crowny's really thought about it yet, the 'relationship' between Crowny and Lorcan has always had Orla orbiting it but not in the center and that's still pretty much the case. I don't think it'll change until the relationship becomes something that can't be shrugged away

I love how those two name options are so different 😭😭

Yo i was going to say his name isn’t Garrett but then I realized that I fucking forgot his name but it’s not Garrett cause I remember thinking I wanted to give him a “stinky” name 😭😭

So the relationship for lack of a better term between Crowny and Lorcan doesn’t have orla in the way… yet. But the relationship doesn’t have to be so blatant for orla to take center stage eventually since Crowny and Lorcan have a different views of her and that could cause friction without accepted feelings. I do think she is in the centre in the friendly route since it’s what makes Crowny back away from that

[wizardofarles]

LYKMC Ch.16 Sneak Peek

Laurent’s rage was a cold thing; a dead weight he dragged behind him through the shadowed streets of Arles like a corpse. It made no noise, offered no insights. It wanted only to be still and fall apart—to lie down and rot. But he dragged it onward, scraping down the sidewalks toward the one place it wanted least of all to go; home.

The house was dark when it came into view. Only the lamppost out front remained on; a lighthouse beacon burning through the dark. This way to shore, it screamed, this way to wreckage! So that way Laurent went. Home. There was nowhere else to go.

A shadow grew from his feet, stretching out in front of him on the driveway. Laurent glanced over his shoulder just as the roar reached his ears, and saw a single round light like a fallen star shooting down the road right toward him where he stood. He stepped out of its path just in time to avoid being struck by the motorcycle as it careened to a stop, tires squealing as they skidded against the asphalt in the place he’d just been standing.

The rider killed the engine and ripped off his helmet, releasing a spill of shaggy hair that dimly reflected the yellow lamplight. “Jesus! I almost hit you!” Auguste exclaimed, the wide whites of his eyes glittering faintly. “What the hell are you doing skulking around in the dark?”

“Shhh!” Laurent hissed, glancing back toward the house. The windows remained dark, no sign of life behind the glass.

“Ohh, I get it,” Auguste said, dismounting clumsily. He lowered his voice to a loud whisper, his teeth flashing proudly as he grinned. “You snuck out!”

“You’re drunk.” Laurent could smell the alcohol on him from six feet away.

“Did you go to a party?” His brother took a wobbly step toward him, reaching out with a gloved hand. “C’mon, you can tell me.”

Laurent dodged his hand with a backward step. “Yeah, Auguste,” he said dryly. “I was at a party.”

“Cool,” Auguste said awkwardly, his excitement all dried up. He scratched the back of his neck, the leather of their father’s jacket creaking as he moved. “Did you have fun?”

“No.”

Silence fell between them like a curtain. Nicaise’s ring was burning a hole in Laurent’s pocket. It took all his conscious control to resist the urge to touch it; to close his fist around it.

He crossed his arms and looked his brother up and down, from his wrinkled jeans to his greasy hair to the dark bruise staining his jaw. “You look like shit.”

Auguste let out a breath of laughter, looking down at himself with a shrug. “Yeah.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I …?” He blinked in confusion. “I’m coming home.”

“I thought you lived with Jord now.”

“Laurent, I—”

“Or aren’t you planning to move in with your new girlfriend and her fiancé?” He expelled a sharp laugh, throwing his head back to gaze up at the winking stars. “What a fucking mess.”

Auguste’s brow furrowed. “I’m not dating anyone. Where did you hear that? Did Damen say something to you?” The tension in his brow suddenly released as something appeared to dawn on him. “Have you been spying on me?”

“Do you think she loves you?” Laurent said. There was a tightness in his chest, behind his ribs. He pushed his words through a constricting throat, and they cut like shards of shattered glass on their way out. “You’re nothing to her. You’re a plaything. And you’re too stupid to even see it.”

He turned away and started down the stone walkway, leaving Auguste to work through the anger and confusion that battled for control of his face.

“Hey,” Auguste called out as Laurent was climbing the shallow steps up to the door, halting him. “Were you there, in Eden? The club. Was … oh,” Laurent glanced back to see a look of horror take hold of his brother’s face. “Was Torveld there?”

Laurent did not answer, just walked into the house and closed the door behind him, remembering the need for stealth only just in time to press the latch in gently. With numbness in his heart, he seemed to float up the stairs on muscle memory.

Once in his room, he hid Nicaise’s ring in his jewelry box, tucking it into a small velvet-lined box that held another ring—a gold band with a blue sapphire that matched his earring. After a moment of hesitation, he reached under his collar to grab the pendant of Saint Michael and pulled the necklace off over his head. He dropped that into the box too, and locked it back up before returning it to its hiding place amidst the shadows under his bed.

A knock on his door sent a jolt through him. “Laurent?” His brother’s soft call was muffled through the wood. “Can I come in?”

Laurent didn’t panic; he’d locked his door. He still had a few seconds before he would have to answer. He rushed over to his desk and taped the jewelry box key to the underside of it—where he’d been hiding it since the day Auguste tore his room apart—then took one last glance at his bed to make sure the box was fully concealed.

Auguste’s fist was raised when Laurent opened the door; poised to knock again. He lowered it when Laurent motioned for him to come inside. In the overhead light, Laurent could see the flush staining Auguste’s cheeks and creeping down his neck.

“Laurent,” his brother began when the door was safely shut. “I know I seem … I’m not mad at you, I promise. Please, just—has Torveld behaved inappropriately with you?”

Laurent leaned back so that he was almost sitting on his desk and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do you mean ‘inappropriately’?”

“Has he,” Auguste said haltingly, clearly fighting to keep a grimace off his face, “you know … made you feel uncomfortable, or touched you anywhere he shouldn’t be touching you, or—”

“No, Gus. Jesus,” Laurent pushed up off the desk and crossed to his bed, where he began moving the remnants of his homework off the bed to the nightstand. “Why would you ask me that?”

Something in Auguste’s eyes hardened, and he placed his hands on his hips. “So I didn’t see Torveld kissing you at that club?”

“What? You’re delusional. I haven’t been to any club.”

His eyes narrowed, searching Laurent’s face. “Are you lying to me?”

“No,” Laurent snapped, “I’m not fucking lying to you.”

“Hey, watch it,” Auguste said, throwing up his palms. “It’s just something I thought I saw. And … something Kastor said.” His brow furrowed in thought. “He said it was you who told him I was with Jokaste. How did you know that?”

“Intuition,” said Laurent, straightening his spine.

“Intuition?” Auguste scoffed. “You expect me to believe that?”

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Honestly? No.”

Auguste shook his head. “Why did you tell Kastor? How did you even get in touch with him?”

“I didn’t. I told Uncle.”

“Uncle.”

“I told him what I suspected, and he tracked your phone to the club. We were worried about you. You’ve been acting strange, not like yourself. Drunk at all hours, getting into fights, disappearing for days on end,” he said with a blistering look that made the color in Auguste’s cheeks deepen. “Uncle must have told Kastor. Maybe he was trying to stop it before it got out of hand. To protect you.” Or to protect himself.

Laurent suddenly recalled something his uncle had said about Damen. He is circling too close to our walls.

“Why is Jokaste so interested in you?” he asked Auguste.

[kira-mori]

Hello <3 a strange question about Capri, what was the moment when Laurent knew he had fell in love with Damen and viceversa? I'm reading the third book and it is literally killing me their divorced era, I know it's all part of Laurent twisted beautiful sexy mind but still I want to die so I'm thinking of romantic moments in my head :( especially Laurent having Auguste as his favourite person in the world and saying to Damen that he reminded him of his brother

This is a tough question, (but I'm happy to answer!) as both Laurent and Damen struggle with their emotions and internal conflicts, making the acceptance of their feelings a gradual process. Animosity slowly shifts into admiration, acceptance, trust, and finally, love.

There’s definitely an initial animalistic attraction from the very beginning, but the moment Laurent and Damen consciously realize they are in love definitely happens in Book 2.

Damen's Realization:

In the early chapters of The Prince's Gambit, Damen still uses reptilian comparisons to describe Laurent and hates the man who is responsible for his captivity and punishment. But gradually, a thin thread of respect starts to form.

Their visit to the inn could be seen as a turning point. Laurent teases Damen while disguised as a pet, catching Damen off guard. Here, Damen begins to struggle with conflicting emotions. On one hand, he sees Laurent as dangerous, "it was like feeding a predator" when he feeds him bread like a master would do with a pet. On the other hand, he battles the urge to touch Laurent tenderly, “He fought the urge to press against Laurent's lips with the pads of his fingertips.” He tries to keep his feelings in check, “He reminded of himself forcefully of who this was, Laurent, his captor.”

Despite this internal struggle, Damen accepts his feelings more quickly than Laurent. He even finds himself reminiscing about their wild night, “that memory was inextricably tangled with the glints of Nicaise’s sapphire earring, the murmur of Laurent’s voice in his ear, the breathless brilliance of the chase, rooftop to rooftop, all of it woven into a long, mad, endless night.”

Afterward, Damen becomes more protective and affectionate toward Laurent, even admitting to himself that “any man would have been roused by Laurent playing pet in his lap”. Damen already gazes at Laurent in a new light, noticing that “it was impossible not to look at his mouth” as his yearning for him deepens.

When they are captured by the Vaskian raiders and the leader slides his hand across Laurent’s body, Damen’s possessiveness unleashes: “This man had his hands on Laurent, and Damen was going to kill him.” Damen then goes on a killing spree, despite being bound (wtf Damen, lol). This, I believe, is the moment when Damen fully and consciously realizes he’s in love with Laurent, feeling protective and ready to slice down anyone who dares to lay even a finger on him.

Laurent's Realization:

In the inn, Laurent is mischievous and teasing, clearly attracted to Damen but not yet aware of his crush.

It’s not until Damen saves his life at the river, rescuing him in a spectacular way.

“He hefted his sword, changed his grip, and threw. It was, emphatically, not a throwing weapon. It was six pounds of Veretian steel, forged for a two-handed grip. And he was on a moving horse, and the man was moving too, towards Laurent.”

In this moment of vulnerability, Laurent begins to see Damen not as an enemy but as someone he can trust with his life.

After this, Laurent starts to become more aware of his feelings. When he declares to Halvik (at the women's Vaskian camp), “The slave lies in no bed but mine,” it’s the first time Laurent asserts his claim over Damen.

By this point, Damen shifts between treating Laurent like a feral cat and giving in to his urges to touch him in a more intimate way. He says and does things that catch Laurent off guard, like lifting his fingers to touch the bruised edge of Laurent’s jaw: “The man who did this to you…” Damen is surprised by his own actions, not even himself knowing exactly what he’s doing, yet he continues to tear down Laurent’s defenses like a bulldozer. Damen being damen.

Laurent’s acceptance is slower due to his guarded nature and traumatic past. It is a process. The river rescue deepens his trust in Damen, and by the time he claims Damen at the Vaskian women's camp, his defenses begin to crumble. By their first kiss, Laurent is already fully aware that he is in love with Damen.

Hang in there, anon! Great things await you after the divorce era🖤

[daylightaftertherain]

hii 8, 9, 12, 17 for the choose violence ask :] for any fandom ofc

hii hi :D

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

the idea that the scene by the lake in the yr s3 trailer is wilmon breaking up :) there is nothing to support that :) stop it :)

9. worst part of canon

ok switching over to kinnporsche and I would say just the last episode?? and the way porsche joining the family is framed as good even though it's the last thing he wanted

10. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

marcus I guess?? not like as in him as a person and I do still hate on him sometimes, but I think him as a character/foil is interesting and he's genuinely not as bad as some of the takes on him think, and I regard in a generally neutral light overall. I just think sometimes you need to remove yourself from the narrative and personal beliefs when thinking about the marcus and simon dynamic and it makes for a much more interesting conversation than just "he was just a sucky rebound character"

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

nicaise from captive prince ;-; pLEASE give me more character studies and fix its of my child ;-;

[blue-rose-soul]

“Angel Dust cracks a joke about Lucifer wanting Alastor to call him 'daddy' and Lucifer promptly vomits all over the carpet.”

Asksjdjdjhdjfjf Absolutely dying, this mental image is hilarious, I just love this au. In this scenario do you think Lucifer would end up telling Alastor or would he just put that off forever?

In Angel's defense, he doesn't know what's going on! He'll apologize when the truth comes out.

Honestly, I don't think Lucifer would tell Alastor right away. Not that he doesn't want to, but, well... Look, the man clearly has communication issues. He barely spoke to Charlie for years, and when he finally did he still sucked at it. At least, until Charlie snapped at him that a bloodthirsty serial killer was literally more supportive than he was being. He'd try to tell Alastor, but honestly, it would probably take something similarly big for him to actually spit it out. It doesn't help that, even without knowing the truth, Alastor already hates his guts.

On top of that, Lucifer just really really hopes he's wrong. He doesn't want to believe he'd betray his family in that way. Even if he was so intoxicated he forgot what teeth were and was very distressed by the sharp bones in his mouth, he can't forgive himself for cheating on Lilith. And he feels guilty over what he did to Nicaise as well. He genuinely liked her! He enjoyed dancing with her, and singing, and just partying and having fun. Lucifer saw Nicaise as a friend. The thought that he 'hit it and quit it' with someone he cared about, leaving her and their child to fend for themselves, makes Lucifer feel like scum.

So every time Lucifer tries to talk to Alastor, he freezes. He stammers, backpedals, and generally makes an ass of himself. It doesn't help that he keeps remembering the stupid things he said during their first meeting, and oh, the 'bellhop' and 'busboy' comments feel so icky now that he knows Alastor's black. He hears his own voice calling found families 'losers' and feels sick to his stomach and ends up just not saying anything.

All the while, Alastor continues to drive home how much of a failure of a parent Lucifer is until Charlie cuts in and shuts him down. Charlie jumping to Lucifer's defense doesn't make him feel much better.

[vera-dauriac]

fic stats game

@kimannebb said anyone who wanted should dive into this, and she encouraged me to do it, so here we go!

most hits: 8657 on What No One Else Can (LOTR)

I’ve written 3 Aragorn/Legolas fics, and I’m not quite sure why this one took off like it did, but in less than a year, it became my most wildly popular fic and shows little sign of slowing down.

second most kudos: 287 on Weaving (Vikings)

My first Athelnar fic, and still one of the best things I’ve ever written. It wasn’t intended to be when I first wrote it, but it turned out to be Part 1 of a series A Law for Lovers.

third most bookmarks: 62 on A Slow Eclipse (Versailles)

I know I just said this about the last one, but this is also one of the best fics I’ve ever written. It took a lot of work to get Louis and Philippe right individually and their relationship with each other, but I’m so happy with the result.

fourth most comments: 46 (comment threads) on Live and Learn (Captive Prince)

This was the first fic idea I had for this fandom, and I very nearly didn’t write it because I experienced some push back from some fans at the idea, because Nicaise eventually has sex with Damen and Laurent. But after stewing about that for over a year, I finally said fuck it and wrote the damned thing. And given the positive feedback on the actual finished fic, I’m so glad I did.

fifth most words: 37,509 in League of Liars (The First Law)

The actual answer to this is A Slow Eclipse at 36,328, but since I already talked about that one, here’s the next closest in word count, my giant let’s throw every idea I've ever had into one Joe Abercrombie fic. I have sex scenes with 5 different pairings. It’s just a crazy fic into which I vomited everything I could. I honestly kind of dig it, but there’s pretty much something to annoy every Abercrombie fan, so it’s never surprised me that it never took off.

fewest words: 1,228 in Haven of Repose (Vikings)

This is Part 4 of my Athelnar series A Law for Lovers, which, honestly, I love the whole series, and the 5 fics total are only 9,334 words. There’s something about these two that draws me to writing brief, evocative dreamlike fics. What can I say?

That really was fun! Other writers should totally join in!

[lucky-clover-gazette]

captive prince book 1 highlights & annotations

chapter 8

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

When they sat, he unclipped Damen’s leash, wound it around the handler’s rod, then tossed it to one of the attendants, who managed to catch it with only a slight fumble.

craft note: great little tension-breaking moment that doesn’t feel too silly

Torveld, evidence of a small coup for Laurent.

context: i think this just means that he is a useful tool in the power struggle against the regent? like, that’s how laurent regards him? which damen would understand at this point

Nicaise also sat well. His beauty at close range was striking. So was his youth. His voice, when he spoke, was unbroken. It had the clear fluting tone of a knife tapped against crystal, without cracks. ‘I don’t want to sit next to you,’ said Nicaise. ‘Fuck off.’

craft note: describes him as sweet, makes him say something vulgar. nice. 

also, laurent parallel!

His huge blue eyes were fringed like a whore’s, or like a doe’s.

craft note: GREAT line. highlights the deranged way sex and innocence are regarded in vere.

‘I made your pet jump,’ said Nicaise, smugly.

context: he did this to get laurent’s attention, not to hurt damen. i mean he definitely thought it was funny to stab damen with a fork but that’s just extra

Not sounding at all displeased: ‘Yes, you did.’

laurent respects the fork thing. birds of a feather etc

Laurent immediately lifted his cup and inclined it towards Nicaise in a little gesture sealing the bet. Damen tried to shake the bizarre impression that they were enjoying themselves.

context: nicaise is the closest thing laurent has to a brother, or maybe even a friend. this is one of the first glimpses of Real Laurent that we’ve seen in this book—funny, competitive, supportive in a backhanded way. damen just doesn’t know that this is the Real Laurent, and neither would a first-time reader. so from his perspective, laurent’s behavior is bizarre.

In a miracle of restraint, there were only nine courses, served ribboned and artfully arranged on jewelled plates by attractive pages.

Laurent went very still; then he deliberately shifted in his seat and leaned in, bringing his lips right to Damen’s ear. ‘I think I’m out of stabbing range, he’s got short arms. Or perhaps he’ll try to throw a sugar plum? That is difficult. If I duck he’ll hit Torveld.’ Damen gritted his teeth. ‘You know what I meant. He heard you. He’s going to act. Can’t you do something about it?’ ‘I’m occupied.’ ‘Then let me do something.’ ‘Bleed on him?’ said Laurent.

a glimmer of their future dynamic :’)

Damen opened his mouth to reply, and found his words stopped by the startling touch of Laurent’s fingers against his lips, a thumb brushing his jawline. It was the sort of absent touch that any master at the table might give to a pet. But from the shocked reaction that rolled over the courtiers at the table, it was clear that Laurent did not do this sort of thing often. Or ever. ‘My pet was feeling neglected,’ Laurent apologised to Torveld.

i am not immune to whatever the fuck this is

context: laurent was getting a little too comfortable talking to damen like they’re friends, which then made him switch gears. and/or he was feeling a little silly

‘He looks combative, but he’s really very docile and adoring,’ said Laurent, ‘like a puppy.’

freak

To demonstrate, Laurent picked up a confection of crushed nuts and honey and held it out to Damen as he had at the ring, between thumb and forefinger. ‘Sweetmeat?’ said Laurent. In the stretched-out moment that followed, Damen thought explicitly about killing him.

FREAK

i’m guessing the strategy here is to assert his own power and maybe make torveld feel frisky so he’ll support laurent and take the deal, but also. freak

She was saying to the noblewoman, ‘Of course, the idea of one of us keeping males is grotesque.

“i can excuse keeping a human pet, but i draw the line at heterosexuality”

Damen had assumed that pets, like slaves, were sexually submissive to their masters, as was the custom in Akielos. But he could only guess at the arrangements between Vannes and this woman in bed.

so is the pet/master relationship consensual? veretian pets are essentially full-time prostitutes, being paid to larp a specific power dynamic. so i suppose the matter of consent here rests on whether prostitution and sex work can be considered consensual, at all. which… is a very difficult question to answer, although my gut says that it isn’t. like, it’s consensual on paper between the two parties, but i still think that the inherent power imbalance of a person who is paying for services that make another person vulnerable is shaky at best. and the way vulnerable people (women, gay men) often turn to sex work as a last resort, because our real-life patriarchal society wants women to be disempowered and dependent, makes it really not seem like a choice at all. 

that said, vere isn’t the real world. and while bdsm is real, it is meant to include protections for every person involved. i thiiiiink i’d probably feel comfortable calling the master/pet thing in this fictional society consensual if i knew 1) that an indisputable safe word was built into the contract, and 2) that financial compensation wasn’t an aspect of the arrangement. like, if this was simply for fun and pleasure, without money or status on the line, i don’t think i’d have a problem with it. that basically just makes the veretian court a sex party for informed and consenting adults.

which, yeah, adults. even with all of that in place, i still don’t think informed consent can be given by a minor, which distinguishes nicaise’s situation from the contract-holders of age. that’s fucked up, no matter what. no wonder they hide it from torveld. 

‘We are waiting. Ancel will perform. He is popular, “in fashion.” You’ve had him.’ She didn’t wait for him to confirm this statement. ‘How was he?’ Well instructed. Damen’s mind supplied the answer, sly as a suggestion murmured in his ear. He frowned at it. He said, ‘Adequate.’

“well instructed” SCREAMING (yes this is level-headed analysis but also AHHHH)

"adequate” :)

‘The Prince?’ said Talik, scornfully. ‘Everyone knows the Prince does not keep pets.’ ‘None at all?’ said Damen. She said, ‘You.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Perhaps the Prince has a taste for men, not these painted Veretian boys who squeal if you pinch them.’ Her tone suggested that she approved of this on general principle.

this is charming in a way i can’t quite describe. the girls and the gays having a chat. also interesting—veretians seem to call damen a pet, more than they call him a slave. and there is a huge difference between the two positions. damen, however, seems to hear them as the same thing. just another little hint that his perspective isn’t exactly accurate, even though he is a noble and trustworthy character. 

The Regent gazed at him for a while. ‘I’m almost disappointed, if it’s no more than that. Laurent could benefit from a steadying influence, someone close to him with his best interests at heart. A man with sound judgement, who could help guide him without being swayed.’

careful what you wish for, fucker

‘My nephew is charming, when he wishes it. His brother was a true leader, he could inspire extraordinary loyalty from his men. Laurent has a superficial version of his brother’s gifts, which he uses to get his own way. If anyone could have a man eating from the hand that struck him, it’s my nephew,’ said the Regent.

way to tell on yourself

He badly wanted to step across the chasm that separated the two factions of this court: on the other side was this man who had long since won his respect. It was grittily painful for him to realise that it was not in his nature to do that—not while Laurent was acting on his behalf. If Laurent was acting on his behalf . . . even if Laurent was acting on his behalf, he had so little stomach for the drawn out game that was being played tonight. And yet. ‘I’m not the man you want,’ he said. ‘I don’t have influence over him. I’m not close to him. He has no love for Akielos, or its people.’

context: big damen moment! loyalty! integrity! good choice!

(although, respecting the regent… gross)

actually, putting a pin in the idea of “respect” here. it seems like damen respects the regent more than laurent, but chooses loyalty to laurent anyway. that’s partially out of fear, but also… not exactly. so what is, and is not, “respect” for these characters?

‘Go and fetch me my nephew. I prefer him not to be left alone with Torveld.’ ‘Yes, Your Highness.’

awful. the double meaning here—first-time reader thinks “laurent is working behind his uncle’s back, and that’s why the regent is annoyed that he's with torveld.” but it’s been twice now that there’s been a moment like this, where it’s almost implying that the regent is jealous of torveld for taking up laurent’s attention in... other ways. i don’t think it’s accidental, especially since torveld was described as similar to the regent. gross. 

‘—told my advisors that I was past the age to be distracted by beautiful young men,’ he heard Torveld say, and it was suddenly eminently clear that they were not discussing trade negotiations.

sharp objects quote again: “if you let people do things to you, you’re really doing it to them.”

That a man of Torveld’s honourable reputation would choose Laurent as the object of his affections was difficult to swallow, but perhaps Torveld admired reptiles.

‘And then I met you,’ said Torveld, ‘and then I spent an hour in your company.’ ‘More than an hour,’ said Laurent. ‘Less than a day. I think you get distracted more easily than you admit.’ ‘And you not at all?’ There was a slight pause in the rhythm of their exchange. ‘You . . . have been listening to gossip.’ ‘Is it true, then?’ ‘That I am—not easily courted? It can’t be the worst thing you heard about me.’ ‘By far the worst, from my perspective.’ It was said warmly, and won a breath of insubstantial amusement from Laurent. Torveld’s voice changed, as though they stood closer together. ‘I have heard a great deal of gossip about you, but I judge as I find.’ Laurent said, in the same intimate voice, ‘And what do you find?’ Damen stepped forward determinedly.

context: torveld is trying to figure out if he can get into laurent’s pants (he can’t, but laurent is in improv mode right now), damen steps in before the flirting can progress any further

Laurent, reclined elegantly against the balustrade, did not react at all except to shift his gaze in Damen’s direction. They were indeed standing close together. Not quite kissing distance.

laurent lean #4. also what a funny thing to notice, damen! “not quite kissing distance.”

‘You took your time,’ Laurent murmured as he passed Damen.

context: laurent wanted OUT of that situation

‘He is a prize,’ said Torveld, warmly. ‘I’ll wager you never thought a prince could be jealous of a slave. Right now I would exchange places with you in a heartbeat.’ You don’t know him, thought Damen. You don’t know anything about him. You’ve known him one night.

“you can’t like him because you don’t know him. i can’t like him because i do know him, and he sucks, yet i still feel protective of him for some reason. we are not the same.”

Damen was back on the leash, being used very possibly as a chaperone. Laurent was acting with the carefully bland manners of one trying politely to manage a difficult suitor. Damen thought with some amusement: boxed in by your own cleverness. As Damen watched, Torveld’s servant produced a peach, then a knife, then cut a slice at Torveld’s instruction, offering it to Laurent, who blandly accepted. When he had finished the morsel, the servant brought forth a little cloth from his sleeve with a flourish for Laurent to clean his immaculate fingers. The cloth was transparent silk, edged in gold thread. Laurent returned it crumpled.

this is as close to sitcom as we’re getting in vere

‘I’m enjoying the performance,’ Damen couldn’t resist saying. ‘Torveld’s servant is better supplied than you are,’ was all Laurent said. ‘I don’t have sleeves to carry handkerchiefs in,’ said Damen. ‘I wouldn’t mind being given a knife.’ ‘Or a fork?’ said Laurent.

banter!! it’s them!! <3 

also, i think the “performance” in question is laurent trying to spam romance interactions with torveld until he unlocks the diplomacy cutscene, rather than the actual performance at the party. clever. 

To Laurent: ‘You let him speak to his betters like that?’ ‘Not to his betters,’ said Laurent. Nicaise flushed at that.

context: laurent implies to nicaise that he respects damen more than he respects him. this is, of course, not a compliment towards damen, but a slight towards nicaise, who takes the joke seriously because he is a child

Damen looked at Laurent, who had simply let all of this unfold before him. He could see what had made Torveld transfer his affections. There was a superficial resemblance between the Prince and the slave. Erasmus’s fair skin and burnished hair were the closest thing in the room to Laurent’s gold and ivory colouring. But Erasmus had something Laurent lacked: a vulnerability, a need for caring, and a yearning to be mastered that was almost palpable. In Laurent there was only a patrician coolness, and if the purity of Laurent’s profile drew the eye, Damen had the scars on his back to prove that one could look, but not touch.

he’s expensive.

‘You had a choice,’ said Laurent. ‘You didn’t have to show me your claws.’ ‘You tricked me,’ said Nicaise. ‘I’m going to tell—’ ‘Tell him,’ said Laurent. ‘All about what I’ve done, and how you helped me. How do you think he’ll react? Shall we find out? Let’s go together.’ Nicaise gave Laurent a look that was desperately, spitefully calculating. ‘Oh, will you—enough,’ said Laurent. ‘Enough. You’re learning. It won’t be as easy to do next time.’ ‘I promise you, it won’t,’ said Nicaise venomously, and he left without, Damen noted, giving Laurent his earring.

context: it’s only a play-threat from laurent that he’d tell the regent that nicaise accidentally helped, which he then rescinds as not to scare nicaise, and even follows up with a compliment. he is trying so hard to look out for nicaise within these circumstances, and it’s especially obvious compared to how he interacts with literally everyone else.

Laurent had delivered all Damen had asked for, tied up neatly in a bow. All within the space of a day. If you put everything else aside, you had to admire it for sheer organisational efficiency.

hot

Laurent seemed, bizarrely, to be in a good mood. He leaned a shoulder rather casually against the wall. His voice was not exactly warm, but nor was the ice edge polished to cut.

laurent lean #5

‘I thought you and Torveld would have other plans.’ It just came out. Laurent said, ‘No.’

there’s no way damen actually thought that. so why did he make the comment? hmmm 

‘You are permanently disgusted by us, aren’t you?’ said Laurent.

the mutual moral arbitration continues

Laurent detached his gaze from the Regent and turned it back on Damen, his blue eyes showing neither his usual hostility, nor arrogance, nor contempt, but instead something that Damen could not make out at all. ‘I warned you about Nicaise because he is not Councillor Audin’s pet. Haven’t you guessed yet whose pet he is?’ Laurent said, and then, when he didn’t answer: ‘Ancel is too old to interest my uncle.’

“you are permanently disgusted by us, aren’t you?” laurent certainly seems to be, and i think he actually trusts damen to feel the same way. as in, he thinks damen has the same morals as he does, about this subject at least. progress!

[robbingprince]

Wait we are already on chapter 9!

First came the thudding. Then, muffled, “He bit me,” a voice from behind the door—was that Nikandros? Laurent thought, who in the world would ever try to bite Nikandros?

Then it was Boots, the soothing deep baritone: “Will you just, for a moment, please,” interspersed with whispers Laurent could not catch. Shuffling. He discovered he was not breathing; that he paused, apparently, a long moment ago. Someone was coming. Someone who could make Boots sound so helpless.

A loud crash—Laurent attempted, unwisely, to leave the bed, then crumpled back like a house of cards, clutching his head. It, oh, but it was almost as though—

The door opened and in came Boots, and Nikandros, and between them was, “Nicaise?”

He tried to laugh, but the sound that came out of him was different, alarming and breathless. Nicaise had grown taller, and awkward where he never had been before, standing between the two Akielon giants like he was worried they would eat him. Suddenly Laurent was not laughing anymore.

“What,” he asked, anyone who would answer, but mostly Boots, “is the meaning of this?”

“He asked to see you,” Boots shrugged expansively. “Your uncle—”

“You look like shit,” Nicaise said, his voice catching.

“Well,” Laurent, “thanks. What are you doing here?”

“Your uncle sent him,” said Boots, same time as Nicaise said, “Are you really dying,” and Nikandros, “Perhaps it is best if—”

Laurent rolled his eyes (to his head’s strict disapproval). “I am not dying. Why don’t you sit down, little gnat? You must be tired. It’s a long journey from Arles.”

Nicaise scowled his normal scowl, and the rabid thing in Laurent’s chest settled, ever so slightly, far yet from cured. He wished, as he so often did around Nicaise, for Auguste. The thought was overpowering: this boy could use an older brother. Alas, Auguste was unavailable, and so Laurent gestured towards the chair with his non-gasping arm, and Nicaise even, miracle of miracles, took it.

“You may leave us,” Laurent informed the men keeping him captive. Predictably they obeyed.  

When the room has cleared, and it was only the two of them, Laurent opened his mouth to discover he did not know what to say. The most important questions were direct ones, and Nicaise was more likely to sing Vaskian sailor operas than answer those.

Did you escape, Laurent could not ask. He asked, “Did you escape?”

Damn his potion-addled tongue. And this peculiar, confusing new pinching in his gut.

Nicaise gave an ugly snort. The way he sat was incredibly telling: but why was he so nervous, unless—he was not treated well. Swallowing became an ordeal.

Where was an Auguste when you needed one.

“I didn’t escape,” Nicaise said, practiced, and also a hundred years too late to be entirely believable. “I was invited to come.”

“Really.”

“Yes! The Regent actually likes me, you see. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

“No,” Laurent said, “I wouldn’t,” and waited with strained patience. ‘Taller’ in Nicaise’s case still put him under the dwarven scale of ‘tiny’, but he did gain at least another inch in the past—however long it’s been. He must have been aware as much as Laurent that his time was running out.

Nicaise was frowning at the curtains. “Why is it so dark in here? It’s pathetic. Like you want to be a story-book’s damsel in distress.”

A burst of laughter nearly overwhelmed him. “Yes,” Laurent said, “that’s it, you caught me,” rather than explain how his head was about to crackle open and spill all its gore across the dim room, and right over Nicaise’s road-filthy tunic.

Laurent asked, “Can you even ride a horse? It’s a long way to Patras.”

“I can ride,” sulked Nicaise.

“And you want me to believe you made the whole journey on your own?”

“No,” grumpily. “I wasn’t alone. I came with the Regent’s guards. Martin says hi.”

Martin was a hellish brute that Nicaise would not be paid to speak to. Laurent had to be mindful not to frown. “I see,” he said. “Is he staying with us at the fort?”

“Ha, fat chance of me telling you anything. Better figure it out yourself, if you’re so clever.”

Preening, “Clever? Did my uncle tell you I’m clever, or is that your personal assessment? Nicaise, you think I’m clever?”

“Ugh,” the expected retort, but Nicaise did not seem half as hunted anymore, and so Laurent counted it a win. “You’re disgusting.”

“Truly, aren’t I. You reek by the way. Did they not offer you a bath?”

He could not flat-out ask—anything. Nicaise would clam up or spit venom, do anything but be honest.

“You reek. What rotten kind of medicine are they feeding you? Is that why you haven’t escaped yet, because you so like to be drugged and helpless?”

Ah. Sweet. Laurent said, “Are you worried about me? You shouldn’t be. I’ll be fine and dandy in no time. Did my uncle hear about the attempt, then?”

Chapter 9 is on the AO3 nearest you!

Well-polished

Laurent was just deciding whether or not he should bother staying alive when the door opened.

“Oh,” said the man who entered, “You’re awake.”

Laurent said, “Yes, quite,” and turned as far as he could with the chains, which was not very far. There was nowhere to conceal the rock he had sharpened, and so he closed his fist around it. “Should I not be?”

“Pardon?” a step towards him, and another. He could not see a face, couldn’t raise his head high enough for it, but the torchlight still fell on polished boots. A large man, probably very tall.

“Did you need me asleep. I could pretend, if it helps. I can be very convincing.”

“Can you,” somewhat amused.

Laurent made himself frown. “Yes, I have the snoring down to the dot. Shall I give you an example?”

“Please do.”

Closing his eyes to a slit, Laurent said, “Snore.”

The man gave a bark of laughter so hard it startled them both. “Oh,” he said, afterwards, “oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to—yes, that was convincing indeed.”

“Are you speaking in jest? I can’t see your expression. The collar, you know, it rather impedes the motion of my neck.”

A breath travelled between the stone walls. It was a small cell, sound should not echo within it—and yet. “I cannot unchain you,” the man said. “I don’t have the key.”

“Right. Was there another reason you came, then? Now that you’ve been convinced of my snoring.”

“I… well. I wanted to see if you were all right.”

“All right,” Laurent said flatly.

“Yes. I’m aware the question is rather silly. But you were obviously beaten badly before you were brought here, and I wanted to check if you were treated.”

“Treated?” Laurent swallowed a whole host of unhelpful remarks. “No bones were broken, if that’s what you mean.”

“No. I mean, I knew. I wanted to see if you were treated for pain.”

That stalled him for a moment, as he was possibly shocked, or more likely disoriented, unable to find the point of deceit. It was difficult to divine true motivation out of boots, no matter how well-polished. If he wanted to get anywhere at all, Laurent would need a face.

“I am not,” he said, “in much pain.”

“You are aware you’re still bleeding.”

“Yes, thank you. I never said the stickiness was pleasant. If you had a spare cloth I would be most grateful.”

“I—” the boots came closer. “Will you tell me your name?”

Laurent rolled his eyes to the floor. “Do you normally take prisoners without verifying their identity.”

“No. No, I don’t. You are not my prisoner.”

“Ah. Of course, as you are not the one with the key. You’re not simply employed by my captor, either.” The quality of leather suggested high-born at least. “In that case, you are either a co-conspirator, or.”

“Or?”

Laurent allowed himself to straighten up marginally. It hurt like a bastard in his shoulder, possibly re-opening the knife wound, and did not allow him to see above well-defined, stocky shins; it was, still, something he could do. “Or you are here to decide if you’ll help me.”

“Help you,” Boots said. “I cannot help you.”

“Because you don’t have the key,” Laurent said. “Yet.”

A long silence stretched between them, somehow also echoing in the small chamber. Perhaps the cell had grown when Laurent was unconscious; perhaps it had blown and blown until it was humongous, a cavern or a palace, empty and gleaming. Waiting to be filled with sounds, most likely screaming. The imaginings were strangely soothing; Laurent had to recall his wits before he lost track of this very important, possibly course-altering conversation.

“I must leave,” said the horribly non-cooperative owner of the boots. “I will be back. I’ll bring water. And some food.”

“Very gracious,” Laurent said, genuine and inordinately annoyed. “I will be right here.”

A choked sound, some shuffling, then the creaking of the door. Before it had the chance to close, Laurent said, “It is Laurent, by the way.”

The man almost ran back to him. “Pardon? What was that?”

“My name. You asked. If you’re still interested, it is Laurent.”

“Yes. Yes. Laurent.” In the part of conversation where a proper gentleman would give his own name, the man said, “Thank you,” and left, shutting the door carefully behind him. He seemed to possess that key, in any case, which meant he could probably obtain the other.

He was not a small man, which might be problematic when it came to one-on-one fisticuffs. Feet that large, and shins that thick, and the voice that came deep and sure: the man was either a giant, or a very near thing, and he was probably well-versed in fighting on top of it, because that was just Laurent’s luck. He would need more than simple strength to outdo him.

It would be much easier to plan with a face.

Read the rest of chapter 1 on AO3!

[insomnia-productions]

guess who reread all the biggest Emotional Oof moments in the Captive Prince trilogy and is now sobbing

[adequate-shadow]

What I'm going to do rn is a mystery even for me