Fic Rec - Captive Prince, again
Seriously, everyone should read this.
I think I've convinced a couple of people on my flist, but I think all of you should at least try it.
I just can't resist trying to share when I find something this good. It's like a public service or my good deed of the year.
It's intricate and engaging in a way I'm not sure I've ever read before.
If you try it, even if you don't like original stories or resist taking on any new WIP, I think you just might get hooked. It's THAT good, she sold me.
Anyway, I'll give rec'ing this one more try and then you won't hear from me again on this until maybe it's done and not a WIP anymore.
Below the cut, I'll explain a little more and reveal the SV Fandom name freecewrites under, I have a feeling most of you have seen her work.
In fact, I know you have:
I tried this originally because of a recommendation on someone else's journal, tmelange. I don't usually read original stories, but I thought I'd give it a try given how highly she'd praised the story. She praised it both HERE and HERE.
I'm glad I tried because even though it goes against my general preferences and I'm glad I did.
Then, when I later found out she was in fact a sockpuppet of supacat, who wrote the awesome Clex fic Wabbit Hunting, I wasn't surrprised, but when I went back and reread that (this time leaving a comment when I hadn't before) I was surprised to see how many members of my flist had commented, pushing the story coments to four pages.
Also, keep in mind that her beta is someone who is well-known in the SV fandom, bop_radar.
Her last chapter for this story, chapter 10, also got a whopping FOUR pages of comments!
That's something I've never been able to achieve. I was proud the one time I got two.
I think part of the reason the story has gotten so much notice, it's been rec'd far and wide apparently, is how it turns the slavefic tropes on their heads. It's not a run-of-the-mill story by any stretch.
Personally, I think the reason I like it so much is that (in a very broad sense) it's written in a way that is very similar to a better Smallville Clex story. It has intrigue and the characters are so complex and the two lead men are for all intents enemies, but because of their inherant animosity there is a lot of unresolved sexual tension...
I think what I like most about it is that the 'barbarian' in the story, Damen, the Captive Prince of the title, is actually more civilized than the corrupt courtiers. He is like Clark in some ways: noble, honorable, pig-headed and unbending when it comes to his principles.
Whereas Laurent, his owner, comes from a decadent, yet a more supposedly 'civilized,' society that constantly confuses Damen, whose thinking runs in 'candid and straight lines'. He can't figure his owner out, and neither could I at first. Laurent is complex and always scheming, sorta like Lex in a way. So, I think the dynamic can be appealing to Clex fans.
Despite their mutual animosity, coming from rival nations so each has completely undestandable reasons to loathe each other, Laurent is starting to show he does have his own sense of honor and might even be starting to like his rebellious slave, even if only a little.
Here is a quote from the Prologue:
"They killed his slave Lykaios with the quick slice of a sword across her throat. She was a palace slave, untrained in combat and so sweetly obedient that, had he commanded it of her, she would have knelt and bared her own throat for the stroke. She was not given a chance to obey or resist. She folded soundlessly, her pale limbs lying quite still on the marble floor. Beneath her, blood began slowly to spread out over the floor.
"Seize him!" said one of the soldiers that poured into the room, a man with lank straw-coloured hair. Damen might have allowed it simply out of shock, but it was in that instant that two of the soldiers lay hands on Lykaios and cut her down.
At the end of the first exchange, three of the soldiers were dead, and Damen had possession of a sword."
Seriously.
Read. This. Story.
You.
Won't.
Be.
Sorry.
Title: Captive Prince
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7A | 7B | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Warnings: R, adult content, WIP
Summary: Damen is the true heir to the throne, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity and sent to serve the prince of a rival nation as a pleasure slave.
I think I've convinced a couple of people on my flist, but I think all of you should at least try it.
I just can't resist trying to share when I find something this good. It's like a public service or my good deed of the year.
It's intricate and engaging in a way I'm not sure I've ever read before.
If you try it, even if you don't like original stories or resist taking on any new WIP, I think you just might get hooked. It's THAT good, she sold me.
Anyway, I'll give rec'ing this one more try and then you won't hear from me again on this until maybe it's done and not a WIP anymore.
Below the cut, I'll explain a little more and reveal the SV Fandom name freecewrites under, I have a feeling most of you have seen her work.
In fact, I know you have:
I tried this originally because of a recommendation on someone else's journal, tmelange. I don't usually read original stories, but I thought I'd give it a try given how highly she'd praised the story. She praised it both HERE and HERE.
I'm glad I tried because even though it goes against my general preferences and I'm glad I did.
Then, when I later found out she was in fact a sockpuppet of supacat, who wrote the awesome Clex fic Wabbit Hunting, I wasn't surrprised, but when I went back and reread that (this time leaving a comment when I hadn't before) I was surprised to see how many members of my flist had commented, pushing the story coments to four pages.
Also, keep in mind that her beta is someone who is well-known in the SV fandom, bop_radar.
Her last chapter for this story, chapter 10, also got a whopping FOUR pages of comments!
That's something I've never been able to achieve. I was proud the one time I got two.
I think part of the reason the story has gotten so much notice, it's been rec'd far and wide apparently, is how it turns the slavefic tropes on their heads. It's not a run-of-the-mill story by any stretch.
Personally, I think the reason I like it so much is that (in a very broad sense) it's written in a way that is very similar to a better Smallville Clex story. It has intrigue and the characters are so complex and the two lead men are for all intents enemies, but because of their inherant animosity there is a lot of unresolved sexual tension...
I think what I like most about it is that the 'barbarian' in the story, Damen, the Captive Prince of the title, is actually more civilized than the corrupt courtiers. He is like Clark in some ways: noble, honorable, pig-headed and unbending when it comes to his principles.
Whereas Laurent, his owner, comes from a decadent, yet a more supposedly 'civilized,' society that constantly confuses Damen, whose thinking runs in 'candid and straight lines'. He can't figure his owner out, and neither could I at first. Laurent is complex and always scheming, sorta like Lex in a way. So, I think the dynamic can be appealing to Clex fans.
Despite their mutual animosity, coming from rival nations so each has completely undestandable reasons to loathe each other, Laurent is starting to show he does have his own sense of honor and might even be starting to like his rebellious slave, even if only a little.
Here is a quote from the Prologue:
"They killed his slave Lykaios with the quick slice of a sword across her throat. She was a palace slave, untrained in combat and so sweetly obedient that, had he commanded it of her, she would have knelt and bared her own throat for the stroke. She was not given a chance to obey or resist. She folded soundlessly, her pale limbs lying quite still on the marble floor. Beneath her, blood began slowly to spread out over the floor.
"Seize him!" said one of the soldiers that poured into the room, a man with lank straw-coloured hair. Damen might have allowed it simply out of shock, but it was in that instant that two of the soldiers lay hands on Lykaios and cut her down.
At the end of the first exchange, three of the soldiers were dead, and Damen had possession of a sword."
Seriously.
Read. This. Story.
You.
Won't.
Be.
Sorry.
Title: Captive Prince
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7A | 7B | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Warnings: R, adult content, WIP
Summary: Damen is the true heir to the throne, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity and sent to serve the prince of a rival nation as a pleasure slave.