it's considerably less than a foot

icon credit: @shippy-things Main blog: @themodethecitythesoul Creator blog: @avinryd

[kybelles]

laurent of vere ; on trauma

captive prince, c.s pacat // succession 4x08 // elektra (trans. anne carson), sophocles, // mirror traps, hera lindsay bird // prince’s gambit, c.s pacat // sharp objects, gillian flynn // cop car, mitski// on landscapes, interiors, and the nude , todd hido

[burnmywholelifedown]

im never gonna be over Laurent telling Damen he doesn't have permission to call him by his first name when HE KNOWS DAMN WELL that they share the same rank

[ming85]

Long live the alliance!

(My Capri tag for more art)

[saltroclus]

More WIP :^)

Pallas turned blindly, and made for the door. ‘What is it?’ Laurent looked at Damen, who had detached himself and was sitting with the sheet pulled up to where he had clutched it to cover himself. And then, with the burgeoning delight of discovery, ‘Are you shy?’

[pick-a-paint-brush]

What have we done to deserve this amazing streak of saltroclus works

[queenegeria]

I'm still on my brainrot about how auguste wasn't always a symbolic figure from the past or the golden prince from laurent's memory...

before he died he was literally just laurent's older brother. he was the person sitting beside him at mealtimes and making funny faces when no one was looking. there was a time where laurent would have walked down the halls of arles and auguste would have been standing in a corridor going about his day in the background, and laurent would have kept walking. cuz he was his sibling! and no matter how much laurent idolized him there would have been a time where he was a familiar face who was just There and would be There tomorrow. he wasn't always a ghost

[shirecorn]

How to Draw and Design Gryphons and Hippogryphs by using photo references of eagles, lions and horses?

Draw everything individually, from multiple angles.

How to draw horses || How I practice anatomy || Gesture drawing

It's like juicing up for a very tasty dream by consuming your favorite genre, characters, settings, etc and hoping your subconscious combines them.

If the final result is your target, and you see your drawing arm as a gun taking aim, then references are your bullets. Fill the chamber with reference unless you want to play roulette.

Your first step in reference gathering is to be specific. Know what you want and stick with it. I searched specifically for African Lion and Gold Eagle. Being specific helps you observe detail more accurately, and it already puts you one step ahead of generic designs.

I'm only going to tackle Lion + Eagle today for simplicity, but you can use this advice to combine two, three, or dozens of animals including horses.

Get your reference, and start practicing. Keep it simple and undetailed, only drawing the essence of the photo, rather than exact position and proportion.

Use action poses to practice! Even though they're more challenging, they will infuse your final result with action as well. Look up things like hunting, fighting, walking, running, landing, etc to get action reference.

Practice most on the creature you're having the hardest time with. That was Lions, for me. I even did a separate page where I studied the structure of their manes, since I wanted that in my griffin design.

Remember: you can trace photos as part of study! This is helpful for correcting proportions and anatomy. Make sure you are tracing mass and bones, not outlines.

Now that you're weapon is loaded with reference, you'll be able to design freehand without copying a photo. This is IDEAL because you won't be slowed down by anatomy. Now what we're here for: Design.

Creature Design Masterpost || Splice Vs Blend

This is going to be yet another visit to Splice vs. Blend technique, so strap in. Here's some guys I drew after I finished studying. No photos needed at this stage because I've eaten them all.

The most common creature design technique is something I call Splicing. You take pieces of animals and graft them onto each other with stitches. Griffins are notorious for this with their bird talons on the front legs and lion paws on the back. That's a creature that was formed through magic, not evolution. This automatically makes your griffin less believable. And probably a bit awkward in the walking department.

So here's a new challenge: Blending. Take bits of each creature and put them in a mixer, letting the ingredients land all over the place and amongst each other. What if we had a lion skull, with an extra-thick bird beak in place of the jaws? What if the lion chin was still there in the form of a tuft of fur? Maybe the tear duct from the lion, and the eyelids of bird? Let's give it lion ears with the furrowed brow so typical of raptors.

It already looks like a new life form, rather than a photoshopped amateur hour of recognizable animals. I could cover it in either feathers or fur and it would still be distinct as a new species. I want the classic lion mane in some form, so I'm taking the shape and turning it into long, fluffy feathers.

Don't stop there! Try identifying what traits make an eagle and eagle, or a lion a lion, and sticking them between each other.

Keep combining! Challenge convention! Add and omit parts and pieces to your heart's content.

Take this practice to all parts of all creatures. Throw new stuff in a blender instead of stitching it together. This especially includes color! You see a lot of spliced markings in novelty griffins, with a specific cat and bird. Artists get stuck on copy-pasting animal patterns because they're afraid the ingredients won't be recognizable, or they're just lost in the sauce of loving tigers they forget to actually have fun with it.

It's still recognizable as tiger and peacock, but much more compelling, wouldn't you say? Go for something unique rather than staying with what feels "safe." There's a million griffin artists out there, but only one You.

[gaelmeee]

[not-a-coral-snake]

Wait. wait.

Okay I just noticed this bit of the ‘hello, lover’ scene when reading pourcap’s fantastic chapter review posts, I think because I find the scene painful and generally rush through it or skip it when I reread King’s Rising. But that line? “You’d take me to your bed for the public consummation?”? There’s got to be a pretty major disparity between what Laurent means and what Damen is hearing here.

Because what this sounds like, if you don’t have the context, as a first time reader doesn’t have it, as Damen doesn’t have it, is Laurent trivializing the seriousness of Damen’s feelings for him. From Damen’s perspective, he’s offered Laurent a meaningful, caring relationship, and Laurent is accusing him of just wanting sex. And not just sex, but public sex, which to Damen is taboo. And since Damen himself just got through telling Laurent how having sex with him damaged Laurent’s reputation, and Laurent had agreed–“As though getting fucked into the mattress by the King of Akielos could be anything but degrading”, he says–it sounds like Laurent is not just accusing Damen of only wanting him for sex but also of wanting to publicly fuck him in order to humiliate Laurent further.

If you do have the context, which Damen will not learn for several weeks more, well. If you do have the context, Laurent is saying “How did you think it would be? You would marry me?”

In Vere, public consummation is the hallmark of royal weddings. And sure, public sex occurs at other times too. But “consummation” is a very wedding-night word, and the use of “the” rather than “a”, as in “the consummation” suggests that he’s referring to a specific event, a formal necessity. I’m pretty sure Laurent didn’t mean the line as accusing Damen of wanting only to fuck and humiliate him, I think he meant “What did you think would happen? We’d stay together, get married, ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after?” He knows, or suspects, just how strong Damen’s feelings are (of course he does, repeating back at Damen the things he said while they were having sex) and he’s using that to hurt him as much as anything else.

Damen doesn’t know that Veretian royal weddings have public consummations yet, of course. Laurent tells him at Karthas. And that same conversation is when Laurent finds out that Akielon royal weddings don’t, that Akielons never have sex publicly. When he made that taunt about Damen taking him to his bed for the public consummation, he would have expected the reference to land.

It doesn’t. And that’s probably for the best. “It hurt,” Damen says. I think if he knew what Laurent meant, it would have hurt worse.

One final thought. The first part of Laurent’s statement here, “How did you think it would be?” is reminiscent of a line he has later on, in the inn in Melos when he asks Damen to show him how it could be. How it could be, if we could have a loving courtship is definitely the subtext there–I think How it could be, if we could marry is subtext there as well. And I think he might be remembering saying this, asking Damen to share with him the dream that he once mocked.

[everyforkedroad]

People forget that in chapter 8 of Prince's Gambit, Damen tortures a mercenary to get information out of him about an ambush of Laurent's men.

He can be just as ruthless as Laurent when he needs to be.

[orlant]

damianos of akielos, originator of auguste lives! aus

[cxinis]

doodle dump

[orlant]

my favorite part of kings' rising is when damen absolutely fucking lost it when laurent wore a chiton even though they'd full on fucked the night before

[not-a-coral-snake]

So fun fact from the ancient live journal days of Captive Prince–Jokaste’s hair was originally brown. (Also her name was originally Margaret, but that’s not relevant right now.) And I think the revision to make her hair blonde like Laurent’s is really interesting for the subtle ways it changes the story.

I can’t quite decide which version I like better. On the one hand, if Jokaste’s hair is brown, then there’s this weird dynamic where Laurent is sort of. the new-and-improved love interest for Damen not just because of who he is as a person but because he perfectly fits Damen’s physical type, as Jokaste did not. And I think the extreme parallels between Jokaste and Laurent highlighted in their interactions in Kings Rising are fun, in particular for the ways that they emphasize the differences between them.

On the other hand, if Jokaste’s hair is brown and you still have those scenes, still have that emphasis on the similarities between Jokaste and Laurent, it would emphasize the fact that Damen’s type isn’t merely “blond hair blue eyes,” it’s also “a pretty face, a devious mind, and a ruthless nature.” It’s not surprising, per se, that Damen, straightforward and honest, falls for someone as twisty as Laurent because twisty is in fact exactly his type. It would emphasize also that Nikandros isn’t just worried about Laurent because he thinks Damen can’t be trusted around any blond people, it’s because Laurent’s disposition seems similar to Jokaste’s. Not that either of those points aren’t still there when Jokaste is blonde, but they’re somewhat more subtle and I think they tend to get overlooked.

[ao3feed-captiveprince]

chokehold

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/DMxtd4f

by huhuhoney

“He had been dreaming of his uncle.

He realized that, later. As he sat in the freezing cold infirmary, his own blood on the table, he realized that must have been what happened.”

From the prompt: ‘Your main character wakes up in the middle of the night and does something they should never ever do.’ But it ends well, I promise!

Words: 3622, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Damen (Captive Prince), Laurent (Captive Prince), Nikandros (Captive Prince), Paschal (Captive Prince)

Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince), Damen & Nikandros (Captive Prince), Damen & Laurent (Captive Prince), Laurent & Paschal (Captive Prince)

Additional Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, Fluff and Angst

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/DMxtd4f

[queenegeria]

twilight days

‘The last time we spoke, the apricots were in season,’ said Damen, in Akielon. ‘We walked in the night garden, and you took my arm and gave me counsel, and I did not listen.’ - King’s Rising, C.S. Pacat

Nikandros, as the Kyros of Delpha and the personal friend of Prince Damianos, was allowed entry into the King’s sickroom.

Once, when his sons were not present, Theomedes called Nikandros into his rooms. Nikandros felt pride and dread flush his skin as a slave delivered him there and he saw that it was to be him and the King alone.

Though he was not family by blood, Nikandros felt a heart’s love for Theomedes in a way that extended past rank and duty. He remembered being a boy, when Damen would dismiss any guards that suggested his friend not enter the King’s council room alongside him, and when Theomedes would appraise him standing next to his son, and seem pleased that Nikandros was there.

“I expect that I will see more of you in this room when you are grown, Nikandros,” Theomedes had said to him once. Nikandros had been fourteen, and he had flushed with the honour that accompanied the acknowledgement, and Damen had warmed with pride as well.

Theomedes had been right. Seven years later, he crowned Nikandros with a laurel and pronounced him Kyros of Delpha as a reward for his loyal service. Nikandros remembered that, too.

It hurt him deep inside to see that same —man, once strong and great and warm, now frail and diminished in his bed.

Keep reading

[thesaltysagittarious]

Girl help my PWP (porn without plot) is turning into PWP (plot with politics)

[opalescent-potato]

@unpretty

[orlant]

on all levels except physical damen is a sexually repressed victorian. literally who else drops delicate china at the sight of bare legs