last_herald_mage | Entries tagged with alternate universe

Chapter Six of my Lendel Lives AU.

Tylendel gets some damn therapy. Lissa shows up ready to defend her favorite brother from any and all threats (the Fist of Sisterly Wrath!). Withen shows up to be an utter ass and try and take Vanyel home.

Warning- For Homophobia (cannon typical) and Homophobic slur (a rather antiquated one, cannon typical)

Tylendel POV, then Vanyel POV, ending with Savil POV.

Chap 6- "Thicker Than Blood"- https://archiveofourown.org/works/34926076/chapters/99108066

blue_jay_jay

So I've just posted the next chapter of Fire and Ice, my Lendel Lives fic.

A bit shorter than last time (Chap 3 was over 11K words!) but this is going to be a kinda heavy chapter with more confessions.

Chapter Four- Two Heartbeats https://archiveofourown.org/works/34926076/chapters/92167912#workskin

Tylendel has to turn his illicit notes over to Savil, and comes to some painful realizations.

We also come to find out his relationship with his twin wasn't quite as peachy as he let on.

(All Tylendel POV)

Warning This chapter has mention of the mother's suicide, as well as Canon-typical mention of under-age sexual activity, and mention of child abuse/neglect (vague)
(No incest or twincest)

blue_jay_jay

So I've just posted Chapter Three of my 'Lendel Lives fic.

Warm As Love https://archiveofourown.org/works/34926076/chapters/90734752#main

This is kinda the feel-good chapter. Vanyel has bonding time with Yfandes and some girl talk with Donni. Donni gives him good advice, explains a bit about being Lifebonded.

He has visitors, and finds out he has more friends than he thought.

Though not to be completely without angst- we also see what he felt during Tylendel's Confession.

(Vanyel POV throughout... All Vanyel Vision All the Time)

fhionnuisce

Hello all! So I was invited by thene. My heart's been really re-committed to LHM lately, probably because of news of the show, which I have major trepidations about. For a variety of reasons I found myself rereading Magic's Pawn and it's so brutal. Truly unkind to pretty much every character.

In an case, I will be trying to work my feelings out through fic before we see anything from the show (that'll be when the fandom starts getting weird as we all know.)

I recently was in a remix challenge and was surprised to find a Valdemar fic to remix, so this fic is a Van/Stef fic. I did this without rereading because it was heavily based on the premise of the first fic. The rules in remix are that you can change anything, but you can't change the pairing.

I went on intuition and memory and these are the results. https://archiveofourown.org/works/33517444

More fic to come, at least a few more anyway.

It's nice to meet you all and I hope you enjoy the fic.

thene

Um. 9+ years ago I started a series in the vein I think of as Scorched-Earth Fix-It, in which Van didn't die but a whole lot of other terrible stuff happened and keeps happening. However I am secretly all about the comfort and had always been trying to expand on that aspect, so I finally did add two more chapters to the part where Van & Stef are getting their shit together and banging again.

I went through a lot of iterations trying to get these two chapters to work, so here is a little reel of deleted scenes and conversations. let's start with Van blowing Stef for no particular reason:

( You did so much for me )

So, there's a bit in the new 3rd chapter where Stef suggests they take a break from having sex. Originally, they did, but it killed the pace so I went back and let them keep at it instead. But here is a bit of what they would have done with that break. (Text doesn't quite line up because [insert much version-weaving]. Also they were in Stef's room in this iteration, not Van's.)

( I have manners )

And another bit of dialogue that got cut:

( Then so we'd be. )

Finally, I originally played out the scene where Van tells Stef what happened - I then decided that was a waste of time bc people would have read what happened in the previous fic if they wanted to go through all the trauma. I also thought it might be best leaving it to the reader's imagination, to think of what Van might have said and how Stef might have responded - when I put it in text it seemed way too smooth. But here's how it could have gone:

( I got what I wanted )

swimmer963

I've been recovering from major surgery and, as such, have had a lot of (very brainfoggy) time on my hands. Conveniently, I happened to have just discovered the glowfic community, a genre of text roleplay that actually started out on Dreamwidth but has its own website now. Since I'm also constantly voracious for causing more Vanyel content to exist, but too out of it to write longform stuff on my own, this has been great. I'm really proud of some of the absolutely ridiculous fics that are coming out of this. Glowfic can get insanely high context really fast (it consists almost entirely of crossovers), but at least some of my threads make sense as standalones (for people who've read A Song for Two Voices, since they branch off from that rather than original LHM canon.)

So, if anyone wants some weird crossover Vanyel (and Leareth) content:

therapeutic ethics: diverges from early book 3 of ASFTV. An off-brand Mindhealer from another world lands in Valdemar, yells at Lancir for his questionable practices around consent, helps Van work through some of his issues, and things go from there.

after summer is winter, after winter summer: TYLENDEL RESURRECTION! Set right before book 3 starts; a half-human half-Lovecraftian-god pair of twins land in the Pelagirs, stumble onto Van and Savil traveling back to Valdemar with Starwind and Moondance, and decide to use their own brand of magic to solve Vanyel's biggest problem. However, this creates lots of additional drama.

here in the angle of house and barn: A badly-abused Sith apprentice and her droid accidentally teleport to Valdemar, and end up saving Vanyel's ass on his first mission in early book 3, and then deciding whether to stick around and keep helping.

hey, god is dead, did you know: this is starting to get higher-context. Instead of going to k'Treva after the, uh, drama with a certain trial in mid book 6, Vanyel goes home to Forst Reach. At which point he stumbles onto a magical door to an interdimensional bar, and meets Cam, an extremely OP character from yet another world who has a serious problem in need of solving with otherworldly magic. Of course, the person you actually want if you need "insane levels of knowledge about magic" is Leareth...

Now will never come again: debatable whether this counts as Vanyel content, since Vanyel is replaced by Abras, an alt of my friend's headcanon of Bruce Banner. Starts with Tylendel's death and goes from there. Abras is a lot like Vanyel, with a few differences, and IMO it's a fun and interesting contrast. All the other characters are around as usual. Continues with a sequel, the laws of truth I will obey.

in the shadow of the sky (kind of abandoned, hopefully will pick up again at some point): no Vanyel, I'm afraid. Baby!Ma'ar (my version of) on his first reincarnation, runs into a character who he might be able to actually trust.

There are a few more (see my author page on the glowfic site), but they're mostly "my version of Leareth teleports to someone else's setting", so are not LHM content per se.

thene

TL;DR summary: Van aten't dead, and he & Stef used to do kink but haven't since before their trip to the Ice Wall. Kink fluff, no sex but definitely NSFW. Inspired by a comment from

gildaurel abt other fics in which Van aten't dead: "I headcanon that with time he would become increasingly more submissive to Stef’s care, feelings, etc."

I figure this is fine as standalone, but if you're up for more continuity, it fits a few months after Scavenger. It can follow on from all these other kink pwps if you want, idc.

-btw I figure most of yall check this fandom on ao3 too, but I did post another new pwp over there in late November, with Van topping, no less.

( daylight through a hollow knot )

gildaurel

Um... sorry? This part is unhappy and unfinished and not very Christmas-y at all. I tried to bring Van and Tylendel back together, I really did, but maybe it's just the madness of my own life lately bleeding into this awful portion. I'm curious as to whether it even makes sense, frankly-- I have an idea of where to go from here.

( I'd rather be cold and alone )

swimmer963

(I think it's pretty hilarious that I finished this actually *on Christmas day*, AND the last ~30K words of it was written while on the 13h overnight leg of my flight home from Australia, instead of sleeping, which I feel like is an extremely Vanyel thing to do).

Book 8 epub

Book 8 mobi

I had a lot of fun with this section! There is action & adventure again, instead of just people being really upset with each other, and it's pretty heavy on worldbuilding from other books in the Valdemar universe, in particular the Mage Winds and Mage Wars trilogies.

*Vanyel & Dara go on a journey to learn more about Leareth
*Dara gets to take Need for a while, and there are shenanigans
*Vanyel goes to Kata'shin'a'in, e.g. "Valdemar's Burning Man"
*Vanyel visits Urtho's Tower
*Vanyel is...actually pretty together and good at taking care of himself?
*(Until he isn't)
*Awkward politics back home
*Stef and Jisa continue to be drama queens
*References some stuff from Magic's Price in IMO a pretty neat way

Current Mood: accomplished

swimmer963

Covers: the Karsite war up until approximately the beginning of "Magic's Promise", though stuff has started to diverge pretty far. This is mostly action scenes, but has some solid angst, and also an interlude in k'Treva that got WAY WEIRDER than I was expecting.

Contains:
-ALL the fighting with magic. I had so much fun with this
-Difficult ethical dilemmas, which Van reacts to very predictably (poorly)
-The Jonne Romance, which I probably need to flesh out more because I predictably neglect romance subplots...but it is there.
-Tantras as King's Own, wheeeee
-Shavri going through a lot of personal growth as she tries to cope with Randi being King
-Mardic and Donni kicking some ass. Also Lissa. Seriously I love all of these characters so much.
-I make Bad Things happen to characters because I am terrible
-Leareth (my version of) kind of trying to be a therapist to Van in their disturbing shared lucid dreams. This goes about like you would expect.

This is still a pretty early draft - it was written mostly in 1.5 weeks while the nonprofit I work at was being audited, which was some suboptimal adulting on my part. I think it mainly lacks connecting scenes, which I will write later once I feel capable of looking at it again.

Link to google doc

Link to mobi

Link to epub

swimmer963

...So this thing has somehow metamorphosed into, at this point, 270K words, and I am kind of embarrassed that my first Serious Writing Project in 5 years is apparently a LHM fanfic, but what the hell. I did finally get brave enough to start posting the early chapters on AO3.

(Brief summary of the premise for this: starting from the beginning, how would things go differently if everyone was basically a reasonable person trying to do reasonable things, and also Leareth was a hardcore utilitarian working on his version of saving the world.)

I mainly wanted to ramble about meta for part 3, which currently covers a period of about 8 years starting post-Magic's Pawn time period, e.g. stuff that was not in canon, e.g. I can do whatever I like. Curious if you guys have ideas for what would be really cool to see onscreen in this part, or headcanons about what characters were up to. I have definitely already taken inspiration from some of the fics recommended here, but there aren't as many set in that time period.

Links to drafts:
Part two - updated a bunch since the last draft I posted, is probably close to final.
Part three - rough first draft.

Current notes I hit in part 3:
*What the government would ACTUALLY be doing to prepare for a potential future war based on the valuable intelligence provided by Vanyel's dream.
*Trying to show Van's process of maturing and learning over time and going from "whiny kid" to "really badass", because canon *super* handwaved this. He also has to be significantly more badass in this AU to have any chance of beating my version of Leareth.
*Speaking of Leareth, this is where I got to start letting Vanyel have lucid dream conversations with Leareth which omg was hard to write, because Leareth is smarter than me. There may have been spreadsheet involved in mapping this out... Also there are arguments about deontology versus utilitarianism, and them quoting (made up) writings from Herald Seldasen at each other.
*Also speaking of Leareth, I may have done too good a job of making him morally grey/not as clearly the villain, because now my best friend who has read it (but not canon) wants me to ship Van/Leareth.
*A LOT of actually showing characters developing closer friendships over time (Van with Savil, Shavri, Tantras, etc).
*Some epic action scenes. That was really fun. Vanyel being an idiot and usually winning anyway because he's that overpowered, then getting yelled at for being an idiot and trying to actually learn from mistakes.
*Developing a bit more how the government actually works and what Heralds do in this time period.
*Some ongoing Magical Therapy with Lancir. Related to this, Vanyel starting out still pretty messed up, but becoming less so over time. (Part 3 ended up surprisingly upbeat, overall? Thought I'm sure it'll be less so once the Karsite wars start.)
*Lissa being great. When she needs stress relief, she goes to taverns, gets drunk, and then beats up men who try to harass her.
*Starwind and Moondance having a toddler. Commentary on parenting.
*Van awkwardly reconciling with Withen after 5 years of zero contact.
*Mardic and Donni being trained as spies, and kicking ass.

dardrea

I maybe could have explained on the last one that I'm posting this in two halves because it's 8 chapters and 8 posts seemed excessive, while a single 20k+ post seemed really long for all one go? Because that's why First Half/Last Half. So yeah, the First Half is here, In the Bleak Mid-winter, which is the mother fic in this series is here, Angels We Have Heard, the second fic in the series is here.

Stefen wasn't rescued from the streets, instead Berte sold him north, where he eventually ended up with Leareth and he and Van meet when Van's going north to avenge Savil. They both survive but they're both rather messed up by what they've been through, especially Stefen, so they part ways. In Angels, they meet up again because Van feels through their lifebond that Stefen is (more than) contemplating suicide. In the first half of Freedom, Stefen is trying to get off dreamerie and figure out what to do with his life and he decided to go see Van to see if he can help him figure it out. In this, the second half, they're going to talk and it will be bad. Enjoy! >;)

Trigger warnings for Stefen's nightmares of slavery and sexual abuse and the drug abuse he's actively working to overcome.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired

dardrea

This is Part III of In the Bleak Mid-winter, my Van lives!, Stefen isn't taken to Haven but ends up a literal bought-and-sold slave of Leareth, and meets Van when he heads north to avenge Savil...fic. Part II is Angels We Have Heard, in which Van, recovering from the end of In the Bleak Mid-Winter in Haven, feels through the lifebond that Stefen is contemplating doing Something Bad to himself and heads to the city where he's living to stop him and try to make him feel better.

In this installment, If I Have Freedom in My Love, a few more months have passed and Stefen is feeling at loose ends, not sure what to do about the lifebond or with himself now that he's free from Leareth/Master Dark, so he follows Van to Haven to ask basically both of those things. Van has had waaay too much time to think, and accordingly, says about the worst things possible. This starts dark, really dark, with one of Stefen's nightmares. The rest is not as dark, I promise? Although Stef is running around, trying to find someone to sleep with, basically to try to distract himself from his attempt to get off dreamerie.

So...trigger warnings for everything? Stefen is a child sex abuse survivor and drug addict trying to get clean and deal with his memories and figure out what feels like a very hopeless future. This installment is told entirely from Stefen's POV, no back and forth like I did in the first two parts, this needed to be too focused on Stef for that. My actual intent with this installment was to end with Stefen having an idea of how he wants to go forward.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired

swimmer963

This is mostly my husband's fault, and I wrote it for my boss's birthday because she was really excited about Leareth as a ruthless utilitarian supervillain, and because I'm trying to flash out the character in my head. Not actually Leareth per se, he's a previous incarnation of Ma'ar, because I decided it would be fun if one of the things he did in a past life was to reform the Eastern Empire and cause them to have all of their high-tech magic.

This is deliberately pretty OOC from Ma'ar/Leareth in canon, because I find canon!Leareth pretty boring and he also wouldn't have a chance against a more rational version of Vanyel or a competent Valdemaran administration, so he also has to be way more competent.

I think I would prefer him to come across as less sympathetic and more creepy than he does in this, but then again, his side of things would be biased to be more sympathetic.

CW for discussion of rape.

( Read more... )

swimmer963

Just wanted to introduce myself, since I found this site on Google after recently becoming incredibly, embarrassingly obsessed with this series. (I hope this is ok and not weird?)

I can't even describe the extent to which LMH makes me feel SO MANY FEELINGS (I don't read many books more than once, but I think I've read the whole trilogy through 5+ times by now), and yet also be so deeply frustrated. It's driven me to writing fanfic for the first time (I spent my teens writing terrible novels, but I'm normally waaay too lazy to do the required research and keeping track of someone else's setting). It makes me sooooo happy to find some other people interested in this! (I have spent a lot of time wanting to talk about it and only knowing like three other people who have even read the series).

So, yeah, I have about 130K words of draft, on a rough premise of a) all the characters are trying to do the reasonable thing most the time and if they do make mistakes it's for good reasons, and b) Leareth as a genuinely smart, competent character with 1000+ years of experience in empire-building, intending to conquer most of Velgarth in order to create a more advanced society without all this medieval poverty (and, of course, with himself in charge: he loves power for it's own sake but he also thinks he's doing the right thing). And Leareth & Vanyel are both having the same prophetic dream and can talk to each other inside it, giving them ~20 years to attempt to attempt to negotiate with each other. I'm super perfectionist about writing, but at this point it looks like this thing might actually get *finished* and so I will likely start posting it online soonish.

(I really love many of the fics recommended here, too! I might've, um, also decided to imagine that typhe's 'Pact' series is canon, except for whatever references to current politics end up completely different by then given the rule of "everyone is trying to do reasonable things", e.g. not what happens in canon at all)

thene

Some end-of-year deck clearing. I've been kicking these scenes around for way too long, as is evidenced by the fact that I posted the first two for Gilda's birthday. Pillow talk here but no porn. Also alludes to sexual abuse, no details.

( Sex never used to mean a thing )

pennie_dreadful

Here are my efforts at participating

21_days. I still kind of wish I could have written more of the Big Showdown, but eh. It's got porn and Vanyel not being a shitty boyfriend, that's all points covered, for me.

( Chapter One )

Current Mood: accomplished

thene

agghfffghgh this took a while. But it is wrapped up for now? I have a halfassed epilogue lying around but no idea how long that will take to become presentable. At some point I'll also likely polish this fic up for AO3, so please tell me what you think needs fixed (all of it) (etc)

( That was madness speaking )

thene

-this one took...a lot longer than I expected. Stuff happened; technology meltdowns, travel, etc. I only wrapped it up due to getting stuck in this god damn blizzard (I KNOW RIGHT. THIS SHIP). Lessons learned; never write 30k of build-up to a bad one-liner. It makes carrying on kinda hard.

Nothing graphic here - bit of softcore. There is also some passing mention of sexual abuse - again, nothing graphic or descriptive.

( sooner a song in the dark than a friend close by )
-->Part 9

thene

^^ I only posted part 6 this afternoon, so if this is your first time stopping by today, go read that first. If you just read it? Stretch your legs, get something to drink, and reflect on the fact that I could have left you right there, if only i hadn't been writing this story backwards from the porn all along. seriously if you have any response, type it now before part 7 ruins this fic forever. which it will. eh i just bet it ends in the wrong place. I'll try not to leave it hanging too long.

( a perfect stranger )

-->Part 8