#prince gambit

Happy two year anniversary since I read Capri 💕 who would’ve thought this little book would change my life

Book 2 riding pillion together🏇🐴

Remember when I was a artist lolol sorry I haven’t posted. I have a lot of school stuff 😭

I hated you. I hated you so badly I thought I'd choke on it. If my uncle hadn't stopped me, I would have killed you. And then you saved my life, and every time I needed you, you were there, and I hated you for that, too.

It somehow includes all Laurent's feelings...

his hatred for Damen

Auguste's death and what has happened after that and how he blamed Damen for it

but also that he started trusting and valuing Damen and how much he must have tried to keep that from happening

and how much Damen has surprised him by not being the cruel barbarian monster Laurent has imagined him to be...

That he actually needed Damen

Of course the feelings he has developed for Damen

the simple fact that he is able to express this and put it into words shows the developement of his character

the "I thought I'd choke on it" can also be interpreted on how determined Laurent has been to kill Damen to revenge his brother and reminds me on another very intense quote

...

Sooo many feelings...

To the last point, that's the quote I meant:

Damen: You would have come for revenge, and I would have killed you. That's how it would have been between us. Is that what you would have wanted? Laurent: Yes!

WIP Laurent de Vere x GQ heat stroke ft the peach from cmbyn

I'm 99% sure there's a scene in kings rising where Damen throws Laurent a fruit, and I've wanted to draw that for forever(if somebody remembers the page I would be eternally grateful)

Later, I was bored with nothing much to do, so I decided to check my bookshelves, found captive prince and started reading and boy I am so glad that I did! I finished the books in a few days and proceeded to read all the short stories.

First of all, before I get to praise the book, I want to say my main criticism about the books: "the slavery stuff in the first book is badly written". Don't get me wrong, Captive prince does not glorify slavery like some haters suggest. I'm not exactly opposed to writing slavery in fiction and there are many political/historical fictional stories that have main characters trying to abolish slavery. It's a common theme.

Captive prince is not much different from the main character ,Damen ,who used to be a slaver himself, gets turned into a slave and tries to abolish it by the end of the series.

It's a fine idea on surface level but there's one big problem with it , I'd like to call it the "Erasmus problem". The first book of captive prince heavily suggested that there were slaves like Erasmus who liked to have a master and I want to believe it's Damen being biased and bigoted because of his privileged upbringing but the story itself still falls apart. There are also instances where sexual slavery becomes apparent and uncomfortable. So if any of these bothers you like it bothered me, the first book of CP is definitely not for you.

OK now for the positives:

From the second book onward, this trilogy becomes a masterpiece.

This story is truly an enemy to love. Most of the other enemies to lovers stories that I have read are just characters either having a simple rivalry or a petty misunderstanding. They dislike each other because one character ignored the other when they were kids , or because they are simply on a different sports team. Captive prince does not shy away from giving the main characters good and logical reasons to hate each other and even hurt each other to an extreme for great and understandably human reasons. They have hurt each other a lot and have no business ever falling in love and still somehow manage to grow and understand and develop something special and unique and I think it's beautiful.

The slow burn: The romance starts only after the entire first book (in which they just hate each other) and most of the second book (where they get to know and understand each other), it's not the slowest burn I've ever read but for a book with characters like these two, it's necessary. and well written

Captive prince's author is extremely brave in making the first book and one of the main characters deliberately hateable with a seemingly unreliable narrator: I don't think I've ever read a story where I hate the first book and enjoy the rest. First impressions are very important and when people don't like an entire first book they probably wouldn't try to continue. I have no idea how and why this author managed to make people still invested enough to publish the second and third book but I'm glad that it happened. It was so enjoyable reading the story from one character's perspective and going from absolutely hating the other character to loving him and understanding him. with the unreliable narrator that is Damen.

The world building, writing and the political story: This may not be the greatest political story with the greatest worldbuilding I've ever read but considering the genre that is m/m romance, I think it's excellent. Let's face it, it's not common for m/m romance to do worldbuilding and politics well. I don't want to seem mean but I've read a decent amount of books and m/m romance and very few of them were actually satisfying to me in terms of politics. Captive prince was one of the rare gems. There might be a few plot holes for me here and there but seeing the characters struggle with each other and plan things out , helping each other or getting fooled by each other in a romance story focusing on mostly only two characters was great to see. I also found some aspects of Homonormativity in the world hilarious. Unless you are married, you are not allowed to be straight in Vere because they hate bastards lol

Despicable villain: This story has the worst and most hateable villain I've ever read in an m/m story. This again goes back to the author being brave enough to write the story the way it is since a lot of romance writers don't dare tackle some really darker aspects.

Subversion of Tropes and Exploration of Power Dynamics : This one was a little hard for me to put into words but basically the series delves into power dynamics in relationships, politics, and society, offering nuanced portrayals of domination, submission, and consent and I don't necessarily mean sexually. In most romance stories, whenever character 1 goes to character 2's kingdom as a lover or sex slave (usually character 1 is the female character in a straight romance) you'd almost always see them have one specific power dynamic. In Captive prince, their characters and their dynamics clashes and changes rapidly and as the story goes on, Damen as a king becomes almost equal to Lauren (I would argue he even becomes politically more powerful than Laurent during certain parts of the story considering Laurent remains a prince for the most part but I digress)

Flawed and human characters who hurt each other without actually romanticizing toxicity: One thing that some people criticize about captive prince and I disagree with, is that it has a toxic relationship. I have to mention that there's basically no actual relationship between the characters until the end of the story and when they do get into a relationship they are a very sweet couple. I think people call them toxic because they were flawed and literal enemies who hurt each other because of it but that's not what I call toxic. Toxicity implies that them being together (they were not together) poisons their life. Both characters manage to grow and understand each other. Damen in particular is a character who you don't see his flaws at first but it becomes more evident how privileged and naive he was and he changes a lot as well as Laurent.

hi! been looking for a while and can’t find anything :(

here’s some stuff i remember:

kid fic

lamen have a daughter

the fic goes through decades of lamen’s post-canon lives

it’s a nicaise lives au

there’s a scene where nicaise asks(?) for lamen’s blessing to get married (i think to a girl?) can’t remember why he needs their blessing, but maybe he just wants it

there’s a scene where lamen are informing their daughter that they’ll be stepping down and she’ll become queen

i don’t think it ends with lamen dying? but it might, not too sure

i prob last read it a few years ago, if that helps

pretty sure it was a one shot?

Probably like this:

Also me: *have filled my e-reader with loads of long fics that I want to read*