“imagine caring so much about fiction” imagine being so lame that you scoff at the timeless human practice of falling in love with art and stories
Plato didn’t insult Aeschylus for his takes over who tops and who bottoms between Achilles and Patroclus centuries ago for us to be normal about fictional characters
this almost has 50,000 notes and this is hands down most unhinged response to this post and the worst part is that you’re right
“And I promise you, the thought of using you for anything has never crossed my mind. You’re so precious to put into words. I think…it’s like one of Theodore’s buttons. If you asked him why he cared about them so, he would tell you it’s because they exist at all.” - The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J Klune
“When something is broken, you can put it back together. It may not fit quite the same, or work like it did once before, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer useful.”
in almost every other children’s book where the main heroine is swept away to a land of whimsy she’s shown having a lovely time; braving dangers occasionally, trying to find her way home, sure, but ultimately delighting in the magic around her. meanwhile alice spends her entire time in wonderland like
look, here’s the thing: alice in wonderland’s enduring fucking charm is that it perfectly captures the vibe of being a very tired and annoyed child who is nonetheless required to play along with adult nonsense.
alice is dragged from place to place without warning, forced to play stupid games with no good prizes, grilled over her schooling and manners and recitation and dress, scolded, judged, insulted to her face, sent away, given gifts she didn’t ask for and doesn’t like, corrected incorrectly, been subject to shifting and arbitrary rules, and then when she gets snappish with all this bullshit everyone acts like a little girl’s temper is the end of the fucking world.
alice in wonderland isn’t a drug trip or a nightmare or a metaphor, that’s just what being ten years old is LIKE. that’s why kids love it so much. even if they can’t quite articulate how, they recognize themselves in it.
100% accurate. adding to which her body is constantly going through massive changes she did not expect to happen and every time they do she has to totally reorient herself in the place she is in and no one seems to think this is at all strange or traumatizing
No book moment would ever come to the absolute raw intensity of the scene where Laurent and Damen make love for the first time as princes. When Laurent can no longer deny who Damen is and what he has done and how that it is an absolute, irrefutable fact that Damen would always be the person who took Laurent’s most important person from his life and was indirectly responsible for Laurent’s S.A that lasted for years. When Damen knows Laurent is the enemy prince who had him flogged almost to death, humiliated him on every occasion he could and forced him to partake in the sick entertainments of the Veretian court.
The absolute hurt, anger, anguish, all between them as the starkest reminder of their reality as the princes of two enemy nations and yet they come together as one because Damen fought off assassins in Laurent’s chambers even though he had no reason to. Because Laurent fought against his uncle and against his own welfare to save Damen simply because it was fair. Because through out the month long journey from Arles to Ravenel all they did was learn to trust, respect and understand each other. Because somewhere along the line Damen understood that Laurent was not the ice cold prince but someone who has been deeply hurt and misunderstood and he has all the compassion in the world and is the truest man he has ever known. Because somewhere along the line Laurent understood that Auguste’s death at Damen’s hands was something that could not have been helped because Damen’s options were to kill or be killed and that Damen was not the barbarian and monster he thought him to be but instead was an honourable, brave and compassionate man. Because somewhere along the line they both fell in love with each other against all odds imaginable.
So a few years ago I bought this trilogy called captive prince but after reading a few chapters of the first book I kind of gave up on it. I normally don’t have a problem with exploring darker themes in a story but captive prince in particular was unenjoyable for me at that time
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 andExploration 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.
Overall I think excluding the slavery aspects of book 1 which are badly written, this story hits the mark of everything I need in a romance book and I just needed to talk about it. Thanks for coming to my ted talk!
Can we like just stop for a minute and talk about how brave and fearless CS Pacat really is?? Like everyone here knows how the system works, books are written to sell, and for that the main goal is to please the readers, that’s where tropes get in, you already know what you want so you go for it like going to a specific shelf in a supermarket, but CS is like just writing the stories she wants and fuck it. Like, with captive prince (as in the first book) she made us hate Laurent, he wasn’t just mean or spoiled he was cruel and I know people who dropped it cause of that (their loss) but it’s still not something you do, you don’t build up one of you main characters to be hated for like 300 pages, and she did the same with dark rise (spoilers!) killing all the stewards, going the unexpected way, making Will the reincarnation of evil, no one who started to read it just by the synopsis, specially if they didn’t know her, expected that and like two of my friends who read said they didn’t like. But anyways, in a world where books are a product she keeps giving us authentic stories
Captive Prince Vol 2 is one of THE BOOKS of all time !!! genuinely. Laurent sword fight scene ,the balcony and rooftop chase??? lamen becoming friends. THE KISS. all the tension and plotting and clever maneuvering it makes my brain cells fire deliciously. CS Pacat you are so loved. This is makes me immediately want to read the Lymond Chronicles to see what its all about. sooon 😁
the thing about Captive Prince that is having me awake at 4am thinking about this damn book series is the way that the reader is made to feel disgust not only with the events taking place, but with the way that characters react or don’t react to it. The way people talk about Nicaise, the way the Akielons think of slaves. Like the book is about trauma on a personal scale but its also about the crushing suffocating hopelessness of institutional violence. It’s about how can you even begin to heal when the world around you is deeply ill
