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ahhhh!!!! look at laurent’s white horse! look at their banners!! look at their people cheering for them!!
heart = warm
Long live the alliance!
(My Capri tag for more art)
Sketches of my snake son and bonus Damen.
Laurent only lets his hair down when he’s ready to feel vulnerable and GAY AF.
teen laurent and paschal :’(
‘You never told me how you ended up in Laurent’s faction’ ‘I was the Regent’s physician.’ ‘So you ministered to his household.’ ‘And to his boys,’ said Paschal. Damen said nothing. After a moment, Paschal said, ‘Before he died, my brother served in the King’s Guard. I never swore my brother’s oath to the King. But I like to think that I’m carrying it out.’
Another WIP I started 2 hrs ago :)
his little gold circlet!!
young laurent, bookish and lovely and all things golden.
some of my ooold captive prince fanart. here’s my take on laurent (i love this hairstyle but tbh i think it would be shorter in canon)
warm-ups, Captive Prince trilogy.
I love Damen so much.
the way laurent having a creampie kink is canon
still can't believe that Pacat gave us Laurent caught up in pleasure begging Damen to come inside of him
😀😁🥲🥹
Took a break from happy smootches to draw some Laurent angst because I need a way to cope with where I’m at in Kings Rising. Anyway now I’m off to read the rest of the book. Then it’s back to happy gays only I promise.
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sometimes i think ab how alone laurent was ever since he was thirteen. how, in retrospect, the easier, and all the more heartbreaking route, would’ve been to just give up the fight, let his uncle take the throne, and … die. but he didn’t.
he’d endured instead a lonely life, one which he’d dedicated as a fight for his reign, and not only bc it was his birthright — some selfish need to claim what is his by blood. it wasn’t the urge to spite his uncle; eager to prove that he was better than him, could keep up with his schemes, even beat him at them, that kept him fighting, either. not even his fixation on killing damen — an attempt at vengeance against the man who’d seemingly taken everything away from him, was what kept laurent going. all of these things were just parts of what, in end, had him scraping through it all.
laurent’s true heart, as damen spoke of it in kings rising — his integrity, somehow remaining untarnished, was what had pushed laurent forward through all that time. tooth and nail laurent fought to win his throne back because he could not willingly let his country, his people, and all its innocent children fall under the reign of his uncle’s sadistic rule.
were it not so, laurent would’ve had no reason to mourn nicaise’s death, no cause to spite slavery, no want to comfort a traumatized girl with a coin trick.
laurent’s heart is rare and it is true, and it’s what, more than anything, won him the battle for his kingdom.
call me crazy but if auguste lived to witness his baby brother all grown up i sense a large daenerys and viserys vibe from their dynamic. like the fluffy loving brothers just doesn’t cut it for me. they’re both princes of vere, i mean, cmon. they’re insane. maybe i just live for unhinged auguste tho..
i went off w this one
my take.
Damen worships Laurent like this.
Gustav Vigeland / Laura Makabresku / Max Švabinský / Stephan Sinding
Love how this fandom just universally decided, "Oh, we need a name for The Regent in fics because he's nameless in the books and sometimes he needs a name. I know! Let's call him Richard, because then we can call him Dick for short!"
Just...every single fic, every single time.
Fucking love this fandom.
Addressing all Captive Prince fans...
This is the Pallas Cat.
Do with this information what you will.
You think Loyse took the regent’s last survivor (the boy from the trial) under her wing? After everything settled down?
Like, "I couldn’t do right by Aimeric, but I’ll do right by you.”
So, it took a long time, but I didn’t turn it away.
In fact, I ended up writing it twice so I suppose I have two chances to hopefully fulfil what you had in mind (sorry it took so long).
The first version I wrote earlier this year after a break from writing that was so long it’d forgotten what a comma was, but at the same time it also feels like a better idea. Like it’s more accurate or something with political peace proposals etc etc.
The second however, was written within the past week and is a huge improvement compared, but it’s a bit less canonical as just a lil bit of fluff and brotherly love.
So, I guess chose your fic, and enjoy.
Gifs made with giphy.com from this YouTube video
Captive Prince livejournal commentary facts...
(from the chapter 9 commentary of book 1)
1. Vere was called Rabat in the original online series.
2. [On Damen...]
“I honestly had no idea when I started this story that Damen/Damian/Daman/Damon/Daemon is the #1 most overused name in online original slash fiction...You couldn't write a cross-over because it would be like, 'Hi, I'm Damen.' 'Oh hey, me too!'"
“I chose it naively, because onomatopoeically it gives an impression of no-frills strength (with its two strong syllables). And the ancient Greek name it derives from 'Damianos' originally means 'to tame' which amuses me no end.“
3. Jokaste was called Margaret in the original online series
"The name Margaret sounds so English and out of place in retrospect, but it is a Greek name. It means pearl. The Persian version is Morvarid, which I fell in love with, but didn't use because it has too much of an Evil Villainess feel to it.”
4. [On Nicaise...]
“My beta calls him Salad, after Salad Nicoise. The other name in the running when I was naming him was 'Michelet', but I thought Nicaise just had that edge of bitchy flavour that suited his personality”
BOOK - CAPTIVE PRINCE
Don’t judge books by their covers
A lot of people don’t like the blurb/summary of the first book especially because it sounds really smutty and everything as opposed to being recognised as the political, romance, fantasy emotional roller-coaster that it, but that got me thinking that, isn’t that the point? To throw us off (maybe to expect less than what it is)
And that got me thinking that, isn’t that how some of the key characters in this series are written?
I personally feel like that could be something in itself about judging a book by it’s cover (or...blurb...but you know what I mean) and that brings me to how well Pacat does character development (or rather changing the readers mind about how they thought they felt about characters) in this series.
Warning: Spoilers
One example of this, that I’m sure will instantly come to mind to those that have read the trilogy, is in Laurent, since I’m sure plenty of us all remember when we first started reading the series and instantly thought “I want this little bitch punched in the face”.
That’s because Pacat writes Laurent to be taken at face value at first before we start getting to know him and the real reason he does things. At first we judged him by his cover.
Pacat does the same thing in The Regent.
When I read through the first book, and I’m hoping others will agree with me, it was only in the latter half of chapter 8 that I finally realised what a piece of shite The Regent really was, and who’s side I should really have been on because, cleverly, Pacat doesn’t make him seem like a threat at all which is a massive deal seeing what sort of person he is.
I’ve figured this is all down to The Regent being as good at manipulating people and situations as he is to make us, even at a stretch, almost understand what he’s talking about, and so can Damen (even if instinct is still telling him there’s something wrong).
Because The Regent is subtle about things. He’s not the screaming lunatic antagonist that’s a clear threat the minute he walks on screen, He’s subtle and manipulative and good at it so you only take him at face value
and judged the book by it’s cover
at first like he wants you to and it would get you every time until we learn, as Damen does, to look at the bigger picture. . Side-ish Note: Say I’m reading too much into this but it’s just occurred to me that the more Damen understands about what The Regent is trying the achieve, or just understands things in general, the more the settings around him are described (if you compare Book 1 Chapter One especially the latter half, to Book 3 Chapter 18, the descriptions go from brief to lengthy and detailed. Almost like Damen is quite literally noticing what’s around him more both physically and metaphorically and I think that’s freaking awesome.)
Anywho, that’s just a small theory but, with the sheer amount of subtle stuff C.S.Pacat puts into their work, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
.
Edit: The things I’ve said about your first thoughts of the Regent and Laurent and the fact Pacat successfully completely changes that, is actually better described and explained by milkylata on ao3 (particularly section 3 - perceived evil) , plus it’s actually very interesting to read so I would fully recommend it
"I hate this book so I'm gonna make 63826 hate posts about it" my sister in christ you can simply not read it or ignore its existence altogether
This realization does happen early enough between the second and third book and thus gives us time to watch Damen react to his own changing perspective as well.
You can watch when Damen witnesses the scheming that Laurent's had to put up with, being framed for attacking a village, prompting retaliation, and even his efforts to find the real culprits being turned against him too. Damen is still a prince; he's not naive enough to not recognize that Laurent is facing opposition from almost every direction and has been forced to become a stone-cold bitch because everyone he's ever been kind to or relied upon has been threatened, killed, or systematically turned against him.
Damen sees the horrors of the border, where the people in Delpha are still Veretian at heart, no matter what someone drawing borders on a map says. He is heartbroken to see his own people happy to slaughter innocents just because of the feud between the kingdoms. Damen doesn't just become forced to rethink Laurent, he's forced to rethink Vere as a whole as well as his own ignorance of the things Laurent has been embroiled within for years now.
Damen is smart enough to comprehend what it all means, and he's strong enough to go through the existential crisis of admitting to himself that maybe he, and the way his father raised him, were WRONG. Damen is strong enough to let go of his pride and LEARN, and that's what makes him a worthy prince - as well as someone who is capable of falling in love with Laurent and having Laurent fall in love with him, despite Laurent's best efforts to hate him.
~Rant incoming as always~
And because I'm a Laurent lover myself:
When they are forced to get along in Prince's Gambit, you can see all the moments Laurent is shocked how hard Damen fights for him, how he doesn't escape or betray Laurent the moment he has the chance, and how Laurent really is weak to not just loyalty but competence. Damen absolutely can defeat him through sheer strength, even though Laurent has spent the last six years trying to prepare himself to kill Damen, and he doubts his own ability to outmaneuver Damen in a fight because he's blinded by his own inferiority complex that the Regent has instilled into him by force and that Laurent has to systematically unlearn.
Now, Laurent has to come to terms with the fact that if Damen's loyalties turn against him as well, Laurent's heart might not be able to take it either. Laurent is literally vulnerable to Damen in every way imaginable, and he's pissed. He covers it through sarcasm and banter, like when Damen admits he could grab Laurent and turn him over to Makedon's passing troops, but then is honestly relieved when Damen DOESN'T BETRAY HIM, AGAIN. Damen actually kills one of his own people by throwing a sword in a completely irrational maneuver, and you know Laurent is going through shit when you consider that he must think Damen only supports him because Laurent is just better than the Regent, the lesser of two evils, the spare prince that's only worthy because Auguste is dead...but maybe Damen also is just that good of a person.
Remember that Laurent isn't fooled by Damen's "undercover" identity for a second, so he's seething at the idea that Damen is the only one he can be honest with, if only because it's in Damen's best interests to not betray Laurent. He's coping with the idea that he and Damen would have absolutely gotten along if there wasn't this massive gap of them being from opposing kingdoms but also the matter of Auguste.
Once Damen's identity gets exposed and Laurent is like "Yes, I know, asshole, you're not exactly subtle", Laurent becomes a defensive bitch again for the first half of Kings Rising because the two of them really do have to confront that Damen killed Auguste and incidentally ruined Laurent's life. It wasn't personal, Damen had no idea any of that would lead to the other things - he had no control over the Regent's actions, and killing Auguste was just killing the enemy in wars they didn't start and didn't have the option to just sit down and talk about.
Damen trying to say, "He died quickly," and Laurent's immediate defensive reply, "Like gutting a pig?" OOOOOFF FUCK LAURENT THAT WAS MY HEART
Damen and Laurent beating the shit out of each other as Laurent tries to kill him, but he has to yield and admit he would have died if Damen wanted him dead, but Laurent saying he'd rather have just died never getting to know Damen as a person because Auguste was everything to him and dying would be easier than seeing how he and Damen could have gotten along only to be denied it. Then Damen ending the confrontation with, "I wish..." AND HE CAN'T FINISH BECAUSE HE KNOWS WISHING WON'T CHANGE ANYTHING
Damen KNOWS he ruined Laurent's life by killing Auguste but he also knows it wasn't personal to him, but it became MASSIVELY personal to Laurent. He regrets it, he knows he regrets it, but regretting won't bring Auguste or Laurent's childhood back.
The cherry on top comes as Laurent fights Kastor and Damen realizes that Laurent absolutely IS AND WAS skilled enough to beat Damen in a fight, he was just being held back by his own emotions (and maybe a knife wound to the shoulder) making him desperate and sloppy. Laurent killing Kastor essentially makes them even as they each took a brother from one another; on the one hand their fates were *necessary* to make Damen and Laurent who they are today, but on the other hand - at what cost?
Laurent being told by Damen that he's a worthy prince by the one person he thinks he can't overcome, in contrast to the Regent telling him he isn't worthy and trying to force him to admit that he can't overcome his uncle - when in reality Laurent IS able to overcome them both.
Ugh, the extras when we finally get to see Laurent acting like a young man who can let his walls down and grieve, who can mess around with flowers and put himself beneath someone he loves without fear, who can just start throwing olives into a barfight for the miniscule layer of chaos. I love him. Damen loves him.
Anyway so I have a fanfic that's half complete where I ramble like this throughout:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52964602/chapters/133982485
Thinking about how Damen does not even begin to comprehend the absolute life-altering trauma he caused Laurent by killing Auguste until like halfway through Prince's Gambit. Thinking about how their mutual dehumanization of each other led Damen to see Laurent as incapable of love or affection for anyone, he never even considers that Laurent loved his brother and was shattered by his death, never shows a shred of sympathy, his first assumption was that Laurent resented Auguste for being the golden child/crowned prince, and it's only when Paschal looks at him like he's crazy and says "no, he loved him." that he begins to realize the Laurent he's been experiencing is one that in many ways *he helped create* and that the purest form of Laurent was a sweet, shy little boy who loved his brother without a cruel bone in his body, he never wanted power or glory or anything, all he wanted was his big brother, and Damen killed that version of Laurent when he killed Auguste.
I think that is in part how Damen begins to come to forgive Laurent, or at the very least to begin to sympathize with him, realizing that in a fucked up kind of way, everything Laurent does to him, while still totally being first and foremost Laurent's responsibility and moral failures to atone for, is partially a consequence of his own actions, that he helped turn Laurent into the tangled ball of pulsating yearning in the shape of a man that he is.
I think realizing how wrong he'd been about the kind of man Laurent was, was what began his journey to coming to terms with the kind of man he, Damen, was at the beginning of the story. When he first meets Laurent he thinks he has him pinned and describes him as arrogant, self-absorbed, self-serving, spoilt, and "raised to overestimate his own worth", which in hindsight is definitely meant to be projection because those are all ways that Damen himself could be described at the beginning of the story, something he basically admits to at the end of Kings Rising when he reflects on the version of himself that existed before he was imprisoned.
"Even before Laurent had hit the ground, the man had drawn his sword. Damen was too far away. He was too far to get between the man and Laurent, he knew that, even as he drew his sword—even as he wheeled his horse, felt the powerful bunch of the animal beneath him. There was only one thing he could do." -Prince's Gambit by C.S.Pacat
and a continuation of the same scene with more spoilers:
these were a hit on twitter so figure i’d share on tumblr dot com. context = everyone was making fun of a book that was marketed with this same format. enjoy the capri versions
Their growth is something that can be so personal
Yes! A big portion of Laurent's character is that he uses the fact that his looks make him seem incompetent on purpose! He's trained in secret to become strong enough to kill Damianos, and I think it's "But Green for a Season" that reveals how Jord discovered Laurent had gotten very good with his discreet lessons.
Even though he loses against Damen during their fight in the third book, he still proves himself to be a challenge; what he lacks in raw power against an enemy, he makes up for with his tactics and dirty fighting. He'll use the environment to his advantage, upset and anger his opponent, and he's not above a knee to the groin if it'll give him an edge. When Laurent is fighting Kastor at the end, Damen even considers that if Laurent hadn't been both injured from Govart and his mind clouded with rage - if he were actually focusing with his greatest strength, his mind - he might have even beat Damen in that very fight! Laurent had been on the defensive and a victim for so long that it's often easy to forget that the guy has been training and pushing himself to make up for anything he lacks in order to escape his underdog position.
The only weakness Laurent has is that for most of the books, he thinks he has to do everything alone. The idea that Damen would ever want to help him, wouldn't betray him the instant Laurent didn't have something to reign him in, and that anyone would actively believe in him - it's almost too much for Laurent to fully wrap his head around. He can't compete with his uncle, that's what's been drilled into his head from the most vulnerable point of his life. He's younger, and he can't do anything about it. He's smart, but the Regent will ALWAYS have more experience, will always have the advantage, and Laurent has had every person who might support him and believe in him either abandon him or be killed with every tiny misstep.
The second book, Laurent would have never managed to beat his uncle in this ONE maneuver had Damen not been there to A: stop him from trying to go off on his own and "play along" with his uncle to the point that he basically admits defeat, and B: has a partner who is offensively able to teach him everything his uncle refused to teach him when it comes to being a leader. The only reason Laurent even brought him along was because, begrudgingly, Damen could be temporarily useful. He knows Damen is Damianos from the very beginning, and so he uses their nights going over strategy to learn both the limits of his own people and how Akielons think. Laurent needs to learn how to be a king, something the Regent wouldn't have been keen to actually teach him while trying to outst him from the Veretian throne.
At the end of that book and the beginning of the third, Laurent plays like he's fully prepared to work independently of Damen - or if he is going to work with him, he'll not be reliant upon Damen in any way. He knows Damen a little better now, but that can't instantly erase the confrontation six years in the making when Laurent wants to lash out and beat the shit out of Damen to prove that he didn't spend all this time trying his hardest and it still wasn't enough. It wasn't - Laurent had to painfully confess that he knew he could never beat Damen, and if Damen hadn't been such a good person, he would have lost.
The fact is, Laurent's greatest weakness is being in the mindset that he has to be strong enough and smart enough to do everything alone. Laurent became extremely self-sufficient, deadly in both body and mind, but being with Damen and even falling in love with him was doubly painful because not only is Damen a reminder that he isn't strong enough all on his own, but now his greatest asset is someone who he's spent all this time trying to overcome. It's a really awful struggle for him to accept that maybe someone can actually understand him and support him and be strong enough not to be hurt in the process.
A person? Being on his side?? Willingly??? Someone he doesn't have to protect 24/7???? But someone he WANTS to protect????? AND IT'S FUCKING DAMIANOS WHO HE HATES?????? BECAUSE HE'S A GOOD PERSON???????
In the third book, Laurent actively gives himself up to the Regent, and by Damen’s account, he fully believes no one was going to come for him. He didn't have a plan, he knew he could save Damen maybe but not himself. It's a bit of a weird final move for Laurent to have been saved by a plan that wasn't his own and barely Damen's, but it does showcase his weakness of giving up when he doesn't have a definitive plan in his uncle's domain - by contrast to Damen who never gives up hope even when things around him seem hopeless and he doesn't know what to do, YET.
And to the next point, Damen. We see everything (except one tiny chapter) from Damen's POV, and so by necessity, Damen has to be behind in most of Laurent's plans so that he can figure things out at the same time the readers do. In the first and especially the second book, Damen really is Laurent's slave. Laurent is in charge, Laurent calls the shots, Laurent's the one fighting this civil war with everything to both gain and lose. Laurent is the one to go somewhere, with Damen demanding to follow and help, and proving himself useful in the process. Damen really is just reacting to things happening around him, with the point of that book being him growing Laurent's trust to actually be allowed to do shit.
Damen's only "dumb" quality is that he simply recognizes things as facts, rather than hypothesize about what could be done in the future. He really is a reactive character, but it's entirely realistic if you think about how Akielons are compared to Veretians. Akielons think very straightforward; they take in what they know, work out something from it, and then conclude with a plan to execute - take in the new information gleaned, then rinse and repeat. Veretians think five steps ahead, ensure every action has at least two different purposes/meanings, make sure that even when they lose one thing, they can still gain another. Damen has the problem-solving and experience to react in the moment to Laurent's actions, but only when he sees the plan executing before his eyes.
Ever heard that symbolic thing about their culture designs? Akielons are very stripped down and simple with their clothing, Veretians have complex ties and strings that Damen complains are overly and unnecessarily extravagant? It's like that.
However Damen spends SO much time keeping up with Laurent's patterns that he actually starts to think like him. Damen is good at taking what he knows and making use of it. To be the King of Akielos, he had to know how war worked, how people worked, what customs and traditions and practices were common, what could be weapons and what could be problems. He simply adds Laurent's new perspective on life and the ways of the Veretians to his list of examples to pull from.
To be fair, Damen BEGINS the story slightly naive and spoiled. The whole reason Kastor shipped him off to Vere as a slave was because he refused to believe Kastor was anything more than the brother he had known. Before that instance, Damen didn't believe people could be more than they appeared on the surface. That's just how Akielon culture is. Heck, Damen even admits that he blindly followed his own father's perspective on life - he was the shining king, who could never do wrong, who fought and won battles with glory and grace, and always with honor. He beat back the slimy, conniving, distrustful snakes of Vere who could never be trusted to keep their word or worry about anyone other than themselves.
It's really good worldbuilding, because it's true that's how Veretians can be - not all of them, certainly, but it's also just a human thing, not exclusive to any culture. Some people are good, some are bad, and it's just normal for some people to have built a society where outsmarting others and building a reputation is the way you survive.
But after all his time actually getting to know Laurent and his people and their culture? Damen admits that though he would never speak ill of his father, he can't agree with the kind of king he was; Theomedes was a king who conquered, rather than tried to understand. Damen's father would have never tried to think like the enemy did, to differentiate one Veretian from another. Damen was only forced to see the differences when he saw Laurent and the Regent - Laurent was ultimately a good, kind person, but he was crushed under the weight and expectations and attacks from all sides, forced to become someone else entirely to play their game.
And it's ultimately Damen who has to convince Laurent that playing the game under his uncle's terms is always going to be how he loses. Laurent is thinking five moves ahead to try and keep up with his uncle who is six moves ahead. Instead, Laurent needs to forge his own path, not to be a piece on his uncle's board, but the king of his own. Where Damen is forced to learn Veretian cunning just to keep up (and he does so successfully, if not as good as Laurent who's been doing it much longer), Laurent is forced to learn Akielon straightforwardness and the simple fact that if he wants to win, he has to go into it believing he will - however delusional it seems to barge in, acting first, thinking later.
Veretians can be good people, use their cunning minds to do good things, to fight their enemies and maintain good and evil even within their own kingdom. Akielons can be loyal and headstrong, and if pointed in the right direction, they'll be paragons who'll fight for what they believe in even against all odds. Regardless of the kingdom, there are good and bad people inside it. Both princes need to learn it if they want to be kings, and though it takes a lot of pushing, they ARE willing to learn for their own survival.
Damen is a seriously strong warrior, that can't be argued, but he has EVERYTHING that makes him a born-leader. He recognizes strategies, opens his mind to new ideas, and in turn opens Laurent's mind as well. Laurent is cynical but extremely intelligent; he isn't lacking in any kingly quality beyond his own self-confidence, the belief that he can win after years of thinking all he could do was lose. The two of them really do work with one another, brains and brawn, as well as the potential to help the other recognize the benefits of their different ways of life.
TL;DR it's like this:
"My size," Laurent said, "is the usual. I am not made in miniature. It's a problem of scale, standing next to you."
What I feel the CaPri fandom sometimes fails to understand is that Damen only looks stupid compared to Laurent and Laurent only looks weak compared to Damen.
Damen is one of the few people who pick up on Laurent's schemes - sure, he picks up on things more slowly than Laurent, who has an insider's view of the situation and is actually the person in control of his schemes (in addition to his godlike intelligence), but Damen sees through what Laurent is doing more quickly than anyone else, even people who have known Laurent for years, and manages to keep up with his logic most of the time when no one else does. In book 1 he always manages to read a situation pretty accurately based on the knowledge he has - he can see what Laurent's options are and where the political lines are drawn, he just doesn't know how to mess with them as creatively as Laurent does.
Similarly, Laurent is one of the most competent fighters in the setting and only looks weak compared to Damen, the God of Warfare, who is like 2 meters tall and 2 meters wide. He's not some helpless uwu smol bean, he can hold his own, gives Damen a damn good fight even though he's been recently injured and fucks up several other people described as very strong fighters during the course of the series.
Yessss but like Laurent is also STILL trapped in a cycle of misery when Damen first comes along. For the duration of the first book, Laurent has, by no means, escaped the Regent's grasp on him. Not only was he emotionally and sexually abused during the most vulnerable point in his life (losing both his father and his older brother who were these brilliant paragon kings in his eyes that he felt he could never live up to), but the Regent has been playing a careful game with Laurent all this time even after he gained some level of agency in his life.
Damen and Laurent are enemies-to-lovers of course, but Laurent has an extremely long way to go. Damen only goes to Laurent in the first place because he manages to discern that Laurent is the lesser of two evils - the Regent will betray him the moment he gets what he wants, but Laurent proves himself honorable enough to help Damen get some slaves to a better place even at the risk of his own reputation. The Regent is looking for every reason possible to strip Laurent of his rightful-heir position, and Damen ends up having to choose to risk himself even when he's in a delicate position as a slave when he decides to take Laurent's side.
It cannot be stressed enough: Every single person Laurent gets close to and begins to trust is either ruined, killed, or turns against him thanks to the Regent, and that changes when Damen comes along. At first, it seems like Damen is protecting Laurent so desperately because Laurent is the only chance he has at surviving and gaining some level of favor while he's in enemy territory - but Damen DOES make some escape attempts, he DOES talk back, be DOES do dangerous things. Damen was not necessarily a good person before he met Laurent either, having to be humbled by his position. The fact that Damen is also the man who killed his brother doesn't exactly make Laurent any happier about being forced to work with him.
However, Damen is useful. He's strong, he's smart (having the knowledge and training of a foreign prince that Laurent can use), and he's determined to keep Laurent alive. It's a good alliance, even if it's extremely risky - he figured out pretty quickly who Damen really was, and it's natural for him to expect Damen to betray him the moment he has an advantage and no longer needs Laurent to help him from his slave position. Everyone else has. He's stuck in this constant state of wondering just when every connection he lets into his heart will snap and break him ever further. That's why even when he and Damen share their first romantic scenes, Laurent is still tricky and borderline hurtful towards Damen; they're not instantly lovey-dovey the moment they share their feelings because Laurent can't shake off the pain of knowing he could lose Damen in so many ways - either from Damen getting hurt or taken by outside forces, or worse, Damen himself choosing to abandon him.
But the thing is, Damen proves him wrong over and over and over. Laurent admits later how terrifying it was for him to be falling in love with Damen, because Damen kept proving how he cared about Laurent genuinely and was strong enough to stand by him even against the odds. He goes out of his way to save Laurent's life, goes out of his way to choose him over the Regent, goes out of his way to make an alliance with him rather than turning on his enemy once he gets back to his own people.
The second book gives Laurent a breath of fresh air, as he's no longer in the Regent's domain where he constantly had to be on guard. He fights off a few assassinations, with Damen proving his loyalties over and over, even when Laurent occasionally abandons and even outright betrays him to put Damen at a distance. Damen stands by him anyway, Damen proves he's not only going to stand by Laurent when Laurent is important to him, but also staying with him even when he doesn't have to.
Laurent was terrified that once Damen's cuffs came off, once he was no longer a slave and was back into a prince - a king, even - Laurent would stand no chance. He's been dreaming all these years about being able to beat Damen and avenge his brother, but after the two of them have an ugly scuffle, Laurent admits painfully that he knows he'd never be able to beat Damen in a fight. Laurent is good, he's willing to fight dirty, what he lacks in physical might he makes up for with his tactics. He uses everything he learns from Damen to eventually become self-sufficient, trying to not need Damen anymore. Laurent is good at what he does, but he's never felt like he's enough - he's always on the defensive with his uncle, and here comes Damen also out-doing him even when he's stuck as a slave. Both of them were captive princes in their own way, but Laurent sees how Damen seems to be so much better than him at surviving in shackles.
However, then Damen is determined to treat Laurent as his equal. He gives one of his slave cuffs to Laurent as a sign of their equal status. Instead of shedding the memory of his slavery, he holds onto them and makes them a symbol of his connection and dedication with Laurent. It's him shackling himself to Laurent to say that he's not going to let Laurent get away. His time as a slave was an awful low point, but at the same time it's what brought him to Laurent, and now it binds them together.
Damen doesn't just SEE the true Laurent, he isn't just "the different one" who is just LIKE that, and he certainly doesn't begin as a paragon of goodness that Laurent needs to learn to be more like. Damen himself changes as he opens himself up to Laurent as well and begins to find something worth more than all he had known before. Damen proves himself over and over through his actions, tolerating even the worst parts of Laurent, wanting to see past the betrayals and his cold attitude and his sharp tongue and actually get to know Laurent as he is. He knows there's a kind, scared, broken man hidden behind so many walls that Laurent can NEVER truly drop; he can never REALLY open up and go back to the happy child he once was. And that's okay. He wants to eliminate all the threats that Laurent needs those walls for, and that means being strong enough for the both of them.
In the end, Damen ends up wanting to see Laurent free to choose how he lives his life and even CHOOSE to be happy about it. He wants Laurent to know he's worthy of it, that Damen can help him find it. He doesn't just want to do everything FOR Laurent; he wants Laurent to finally see that he's strong enough to win even if it means he needs help. Damen, meanwhile, learns about the nuances of people like Laurent and how to value the lives of those suffering, to find a way to use his power to make things better. Both of them are what the other needed to become the better versions of themselves, and isn't that just the best romance you can get?
I think Laurent is such an appealing character because he is so emblematic of those people who are broken but still want to be worthy of love.
Laurent, to me, is a variation on a type of person I’m familiar with. The clever, gifted, introverted child who struggles socially, weighed down by a big brain and oddly adult preoccupations. The one who becomes fractured through trauma, ends up hiding behind a pointed, cold, even cruel, demeanour as self-protection. I bet most of us know that person (some of us might even be that person). It’s not a good persona to have felt forced to adopt. But beautiful, barbed-tongued Laurent makes it seem more palatable than it is.
Truth is, he’s in a bad place before Damen. Laurent is that person who holds everyone at arms length, mistrustful of being hurt and abandoned, but somehow still forges ahead on a path towards some goal they’re determined to win as it gives them purpose, even when they can’t even really envision a future for themselves (where will they be in ten years time? Who will they be? They have no answer). The one who finds romantic relationships so agonising, they often choose to absent themselves from them, because they come hand in hand with unbearable vulnerability, and who don’t know how to feel sexual desire without the past intruding, and without feeling like they’re giving something up or losing somehow, who suspect they might be permanently ruined.
Laurent’s mind is like a steel trap, and it makes it easy to look down on others (not something others find particularly likeable). Is the type who can separate out the deep moral integrity that forms the bedrock of who they are, from the more flimsy, politer, social kind of morality which they tossed out the window in the name of survival (hard to make friends when you do that). The kind of person who is haunted by shame and filled with secret self-loathing, who uses humour to cope, and feels stuck in a state of arrested development even though they had to grow up too fast. The sort who can lose their temper so badly they cross lines no-one else can, but will die for the people they love. Who can seem flippant and facetious yet exhausting in their intensity.
And then good, honourable, warm-hearted Damen comes along and sees him.
This Normal Boy (who is really an Exceptional Boy), clothed in the body of his enemy. This towering stereotype of attractive athleticism, this strong warrior prince, well-loved, well-liked, who should be stupid and selfish, a repellent, violent aggressor, but is instead an intellectual equal, honourable and caring and kind. Who makes sex an act of love, of giving and taking in equal measure, makes it slow and tender and meaningful and pleasurable, adjusting exactly to how Laurent likes it, makes it no longer something to fear.
Damen who guides Laurent back to his own heart, is the light to his dark, and softens those lethal edges. Who laughs with him, matching bon mot for bon mot. Who loves Laurent, for all his faults, who sees him at his very, very worst, all that ugly, vicious darkness laid bare, and still gives him his heart, and will never abandon him. Who heals him.
The books are the ultimate broken person’s fantasy, honestly. That if we see a glimmer of ourselves in Laurent, then maybe a Damen is out there who could show us how it could be.
HIIII OMG I JUST SAW THAT U UPDATED SWITCH!!!!! I HAVEN'T CAUGHT UP YET BUT I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT!!! Do u have any plans for a new fic / project after switch? I can't bear without ur writing 🥺 hope ur well!!
Hi there! I'm well thank you, hope you're doing well too!
Fingers crossed you enjoy the chapter, it's a longer one than usual! 🖤
I do have a few ideas floating around for after Switch. Most are oneshots but I do have an idea for a multi-chapter fic where Laurent is married to Torveld but it's toxic as hell (age gap, coercion, power struggle) and Damen ends up tangled in the middle of a cukolding/affair situation...
I'm still trying to get the dynamics pinned down properly, but if that's something you (or anybody reading this) would be interested in reading then let me know. 😅