And They Were Kings

Sasha, 21, aroace queer from the US. She/her/hers. A CP sideblog. My main is magnus-and-the-dragon. All asks are tagged with ‘asks’.

[princedamnianos]

Hello, all! I’m back!

Over my hiatus, I decided to finally go ahead and implement a tagging system. I’ve gone through my whole blog and retagged, so search should be fully functional (Tumblr Gods willing). Read below the cut to see specific tags!

For reblogs, I have tagged them with A) the type of post and B) the relevant characters.

The post types:

Art

Fic

Memes

Commentary

The characters I tag for are:

Aimeric

Ancel

Auguste

Berenger

Damen

Erasmus

Jokaste

Jord

Kallias

Laurent

Nicaise

Nikandros

I also tag quotes from C. S. Pacat or from the newsletter with ‘c. s. pacat’

For my own posts, every one is tagged with ‘Capri’ and ‘Captive Prince’. Asks and replies are tagged with (shockingly!) ‘asks’ and ‘replies’.

I also use ‘blog business’ for things like updates, and ‘long post’ when I’m putting something lengthy in a main tag.

In addition, if the post is in relation to events of a specific book, I will tag that book. I’m tagging them as:

Prince’s Gambit

Kings Rising

The Training of Erasmus

Pet

Green but for a Season

The Summer Palace

The Adventures of Charls

Finally, I have tags for a few specific moments in time. ‘Winter 2k16′ and ‘Summer 2k17′ are my liveblogging posts from those two re-reads. I also tagged all Lamen Week content with ‘Lamen Week 2k20′.

[hypermenestras]

damen is literally so softe. he is so gentle. this mammoth of a man, this solider, this Prince-killer… he probably puts worms back in the grass after it rains.

[laurents-laces]

The cutest thing about this is that baby Laurent never thought he was winning because he was the better rider, like Auguste probably wanted him to think. He just thought his pony was the best pony ever

[laurents-laces]

Does Damen even realize he can just smile at people and get whatever he wants. I bet he doesn’t

[laurents-laces]

One of my favourite things about Laurent is how far from frigid and unfeeling he really is. He’s so easily delighted by little things like coin tricks and animals and fancy hats. He tells awkward jokes and likes roleplaying as a cloth merchant and putting flowers in Damen’s hair. And he cares so deeply about his people and his country and will fight like hell to protect them. He’s gonna be the best king Vere has had in a long time

[sy-wen]

„Promise you‘ll come back.“

„I promise.“

[aryriddle]

Poland is COMING THROUGH with their Captive Prince covers AGAIN 😍😩🫠

[chronicallyweirdlady]

I think the reason I am so obsessed with Damen and Laurent is because they are like true enemies to lovers. Like these two mfs had absolutely NO BUSINESS FALLING IN LOVE. They just did lol. AND... they go on to have a really sweet and pure relationship after everything as well. Like it's literally wild from start of book one to the end of the epilogue/short stories. Went from a toxic nightmare to basically married ruling two kingdoms together HAPPILY. WILD.

[laurents-laces]

Damen being like this over Nik of all people is so funny. You just know Nik's reaction was like

[princedamnianos]

“Relaxed in the sunlight, Laurent watched him approach, as one expecting an arrival welcome and familiar.”

Idk how I’ve missed this line before but this whole sequence is so CUTE. Laurent racing him, then pausing to let him catch up, being happy to see him again. They really do have a cute little detour into Friends before lovers even comes into it.

[orlant]

we're cancelling each other over captive prince today. rb with your cancellable captive prince take

[x-xhiro]

Ngl I love when laurent is "I only had sex with you so you would do what I say" and Damen is like "dude I would have done what you said without having sex and you know that"

Like gurl

[hennike]

this scene is so funny bec its so detailed you can tell damen is shaking crying screaming throwing up etc inside

[sunymar]

the fact laurent so shamelessly did this with the sole purpose to make damen jealous because we’re told many many times he’s known for not being the slightest bit flirty or affectionate or warm in public and probably everyone but damen could tell and it still worked

[altruistic-meme]

we talk a lot about the exchange of "you lack the easy mannerisms that are usually shared with anyone" but I feel like this whole page deserves more attention

the "you thought of it?" to "and you thought of it." is just so playful and joyous from Damen, he's having so much fun teasing Laurent here

[hennike]

from “are you angling for an earful of talk” / “yes” to this particular scene in the summer palace

🥰🥰🥰

[princedamnianos]

Hi! I’m loving your deep dives into the Captive Prince. I only just discovered the books and binged them this month haha. Anyway, I watched an interview Pacat did a couple years ago where she was asked what moment Laurent fell in love with if for Damen it was the chase scene, but she wouldn’t answer. I don’t actually know if I agree with that but when do you think Laurent (and Damen) started to really fall? My guess is when Damen threw his whole ass sword into the mercenaries chest 😂

Hi, anon! I’m sorry it took me so long to get to this—it’s not something I’d really thought about before, so it took me a lot of reading and thinking to answer! Thank you for the lovely ask and the opportunity to dive into this.

Damen, I think, is relatively easy to gauge. One of my favorite things about him is how genuinely full of love he is—he just has so much of it to give. I think it’s really easy for him to fall in love, but it tends to be very fleeting and surface-level—more of an infatuation. I agree with the usual assessment that he starts falling at Nesson. He’s seen a lot of sides to Laurent before then, but they’ve all been very cultivated personas—the cold, in-control master with Damen; the witty and unattainable prince at court; the calculating leader with his men. Nesson, specifically the rooftop chase, is the first time he gets a peek at Laurent’s true self, at how vibrant he can be.

That side of Laurent is playful and vivacious, and still determined and clever. He likes the game, the thrill, the challenge. And I think Damen is drawn to both that brightness, and to the game of trying to draw it out from under all of Laurent’s defenses. That’s when he starts to fall in love, but I think for a long time he treats his love for Laurent more as an infatuation. It’s something intriguing, but with an expiration date—the moment that he sheds this persona of Damen, he thinks he’s going to shed their relationship as well.

I think that Ravenel is when he realizes this is something different. The closer he gets to freedom, the more he realizes that he cares about what he’s been building in Vere, and he cares about Laurent. And the moment that really rises up is a kingdom or this—they go through highs and lows afterwards, but once he realizes how impossible that choice feels, I don’t think there was any going back for him. He was going to stay as long as Laurent needed him.

Laurent is a little more complex. A really key moment in my understanding of his side of things is that first POV chapter we get in KR. Even after everything that went down in PG, there’s this distance when he thinks of Damen—he doesn’t even think of him by name, but just as the Akielon slave. I think he’s trying really hard not to think of him as A Person. That displays to me how carefully he has removed himself from all his feelings about Damen and Damianos.

In spite of that careful distance, though, we have all of these incredibly soft moments from PG. I am coming to know you; he would have liked you; the entirety of 19.5. A lot of his partnership with Damen can be rationalized—Damen had genuinely useful skills, and they were in a position where Laurent was confident that their interests were aligned—but I can’t explain away those specific moments. I think that throughout PG, he’s drawn to Damen, and he carefully removes himself from who Damen is to allow that. Because the thing is, as I’ve said before, Damen is unbelievably loveable.

Laurent is s o alone. He has been for a long time, and now it’s more true than ever, with his last surviving family member having graduated from just discrediting him to trying to kill him. I think that on a very human level, Laurent is tired. People aren’t designed to be so isolated for so long, especially not under such awful conditions, not even people as strong as he is. And then Damen comes along. And in spite of everything, Damen is safe. Both after the assassination attempt and at Nesson, we see Laurent commenting on how straightforward Damen is—sometimes to a fault. He’s open about his feelings and his intentions, and it’s not some front or strategy, it’s just his nature. On top of that, he’s just so steady. He’s honest, he’s brave, he’s hardworking. And once he decides to pursue an alliance with Laurent, he commits to it wholeheartedly.

Damen is the first person in so long that Laurent is able to relax around, and I think Laurent is j u s t tired enough that he can’t deny himself the bit of comfort that their relationship brings. And Damen is so genuine that he can’t find a reason to deny it. It’s not so much something he chooses as it is something he needs, and I think that allows him to maintain this separation between himself and Damen even as he is feeling this genuine fondness and trust towards him.

I think a significant part of why Laurent allows it is also that he, like Damen, attaches an expiration date to their relationship. Even after he realizes that Damen loves him—which, in my opinion, is what happens in the sword-throwing incident—he doesn’t believe that Damen would give up his throne for a crush on a foreign prince. He doesn’t expect that he’ll ever have to actually deal with the reality of who Damen is. He just wants to soak up whatever strength he can from Damen in the time that they have together. He wants to give into these handful of moments where he can show his true self, and rely on someone else, and not have to be so On and constrained all the time.

(And someday, I’m going to write a post about how strongly Damen reminds him of Auguste and how comforting that must be in the moments where he allows himself to forget who Damen is)

That is, of course, why he’s so awful at the start of KR. He’s punishing himself for falling in love with Damen in spite of who he is, and punishing Damen for being so easy to fall in love with. Most of the start of KR is him waiting for Damianos, this monster he expected him to be, to emerge; and instead he’s forced to realize that the monster never did exist—there has only ever been this one Damen, this good and honorable man that he fell in love with. So I don’t think there was necessarily one moment where he fell in love with Damen. It was something that grew slowly, quietly inside him, , until the moment in KR that he finally makes the conscious choice to commit to it.

I think that moment comes at Karthas. We have just been through this slow burn of Damen proving, unintentionally, over and over, how truly good and worthy he is. The sword fight, the tent scene, after the griva. There are so many moments where Damen could respond with anger and cruelty, where he could take advantage of Laurent or hurt him, could prove Laurent’s judgements correct, and he never does. He definitely pushes back when Laurent is particularly terrible, but even when he thinks there is no chance Laurent will love him, even when a harsher reaction would be fully justified, he treats him with honour and respect. And then they get to Karthas, this first moment where Damen is vulnerable, when he needs Laurent instead of the other way around, and Laurent finally falls. Finally makes the choice to love him.

And once he makes that choice, he never backs down.

One final point about Laurent—I think that over years of trauma and abuse, he’s built up this level of disconnect between his mind, his emotions, and his body. I think that’s part of what we see him trying to heal, especially when he is in bed with Damen and in those few openly emotional moments late in KR. In addition, I have always headcanoned him as demiromantic, though I’m not sure to what extent that is something he was born with and to what extent it was born of trauma. Either way, I’m not convinced that Laurent himself realized how strong his feelings were in PG. It’s not until later KR, when Damen starts really pushing him to recognize who he is, that Laurent was able to realize or understand or acknowledge what it was he’d been feeling towards Damen all along.

[thedoubteriswise]

so I'm many years late, but captive prince. what a high, risk high reward experience. the first 75% of the first book was truly like okay. if this hadn't been enthusiastically recommended by my most trusted advisors I would not be powering through. but then. but then.

[princedamnianos]

the first book is just an extended prologue. and i really do believe that.

[cxinis]

when nikandros kept that pin even tho he could face execution yeah he was so gay for that