#angbang fankids

[melkor-did-nothing-wrong]

hi!! i read your tags on your latest rb (the one about the angbang child) and idk if you posted about it in the past but i would love to hear more!! i also have my own hcs and im always interested in hearing other peoples ideas <3

(from what i read in your tags, if you dont feel comfortable talking about this, i understand, or if youd prefer, my dms are always open if you dont wanna reply publicly to this)

Ok I am going to start by apologizing for taking a long time to answer, as well as thanking you for sending the ask in the first place. I still don't know if I should answer this publicly, but after years of either being told off for it being "boring" or "not canon" or "ooc" or even seeing people leaving the conversations on read every time I mention angbang with a baby of their own, I really really do want to yap while having the opportunity of saying: "well, as you can see, someone asked, so I'm just answering! clearly that's for the asker!". So thanks for the opportunity and the encouragement. I'm going to put these events/developments in a numbered list, so you'll have an easier time asking me to elaborate on anything specific later on if you so choose. They're not perfectly coherent but it is what it is, you know?

(Also: People who think the whole concept is bad or cringe, don't interact with this post. I've been hearing this for years but if y'all are allowed to make your own fankids for literally every other ship ever, then so am I!)

First of all, I'm gonna be using terms like "having a baby" but I want to clarify it's actually weirder (and arguably sillier, depending on who you ask) than that. I am not talking about developing another person's body to birth here. I am talking about developing another spirit or soul, which will only get a body when the whole process is done. I am just using terms that will be familiar to us as people even if the process isn't identical (the same way people would sometimes talk about birds or reptiles being "born" even when everyone collectively knows they just hatch from an egg).

So obviously at the end of the WoW, the army of valinor comes over to arrest Melkor and drag him through the doors of night

Melkor immediately throws his hands up like "Nope, you guys really shouldn't kill me. I'm going to have a baby and it'd be incredibly rude of you to kill me given the circumstance"

Exhausted collective sighs. Obviously that's typical Melkor BS so we're not gonna believe that, but I suppose disproving it publicly back at home and putting an end to the bs will not be a huge amount of time wasted. whatever.

Yeah sure ok Melkor whatever you say. we can drag you back west to officially call the bluff and get rid of you there.

Drag Melkor back. Whatever. just end this farce please.

Wait. Wait what the fuck. What the fuck do you mean there actually IS a baby??? HUH???????? How come???? WHY?????

Ok fine whatever UGH you are SO annoying. Fine. you can stay in jail until you have it and we'll kill you AFTER. Whatever.

Manwe is just. Trying to ask Melkor wtf is going on. Melkor, who is having a very very bad time in prison, predictably tells his brother to flock off.

Meanwhile, Mairon, who has just learned of that development, sighs and makes an effort to get to Valinor to drag his annoying (but beloved) hubby out of there.

Shortly after Melkor has the baby and manages to configure a physical form for him, Mairon commits a few acts of terrorism around as a distraction, then shows up in front of Melkor in dragon form like "Get on, we're leaving".

They make it east, and have to start living on the run from place to place out of fear of being pursued, as well as trying to find any remaining allies.

Eventually when they realize there are most likely no immediate plans of attack or attempts to retrieve them, Melkor and Mairon decide to temporarily settle near a settlement of humans who were on Melkor's side in the war, partially because they won't be kicked out by allies and partially in hopes of discouraging Manwe from ordering any attacks due to the fear of human casualties.

What follows is a lot of trial and error in raising what is essentially an immortal Ainu who is both completely new to this world but is simultaneously technically an ancient spirit who has partial knowledge of all things but can't make sense of them.

Another part of the life they build raising a kid is Melkor having to deal with the personal trauma of basically everything and everyone else being gone- it's a significant struggle for him to go from doing whatever he wanted pretty much consequence free, while having the support of his entire court, to just sitting here with Mairon and the baby, just the three of them. He genuinely thought it would happen sooner, that their son would grow up a prince, safe as can be, surrounded by friends and be as adored by all as he himself was. Unfortunately that was not the case, and now he has to raise him very differently while knowing he'll never meet any of the people Melkor had called friends or had any sort of fondness for. You know. Because they're all dead and it's mostly his own fault.

Mairon on the other hand is less affected by it all that much. He always liked being alone just fine, he isn't exactly a huge fan of big crowds. It's difficult for him too, starting over somewhere new and knowing all the people he knew are dead, and also having to keep in mind that he might have to hop around every so often to evade his weird immortal ex-employers, but if there's anything that mf can do is dodge taxes. You're never gonna Al-Capone him. Ever. Can't put him in jail if you can't find him etc. And he's very good at not being found. He's also mostly okay with not being bothered as much. He has his own thoughts on the matter but he doesn't have the time to be an angstlord because now he's got to watch out for double the troublemaking chaotic Ainur and has to make an effort to prevent them from getting into too much trouble. Honestly it's not that different from runing a fortress, in terms of how busy he gets, if you ask him. Anyway he is very fascinated by the baby because unlike Valar (Melkor and Manwe, Yavanna and Vana, Nienna Namo and Irmo, Nessa and Orome…) Maiar are not created in sets of siblings, so Mairon is familiar in theory, but not familiar in practice, with the idea of a family unit. He doesn't entirely understand what it's like to have a connection with someone that runs this deep but he's absolutely fascinated by this little family of his.

Considering how Melkor is "No longer counted among the Valar" specifically, and considering the original plan was 15 Valar, I like to think of the kid as the Vala who will eventually gain the role of replacing Melkor. To that end, I needed an aspect for him to embody that is at least slightly similar to how I view Melkor (as an aspect of change and transformation), as something that can be associated with the creative process like Mairon, and as a bonus, something that Tolkien himself would consider at least a little bit negative. In the end I have decided to settle on that thing being Technology. It can be used creatively to innovate and streamline tedious or difficult processes, but can also be used for evil/selfish ends (especially these days…)

Last but not least, because I can't stress this enough - just because I prefer Melkor and Mairon to be loving partners to eachother and loving parents to their son, that does NOT mean they're suddenly "good" or "kind" or "redeemed" or any of the thousand other words used to describe either post first age Mairon or post fourth/whichever age Melkor. I am not opposed to the idea in general, in fact not only do I get the appeal, I even love it because I love reading about these evil little feral creatures being happy together. but to me personally just because they love their own boy and are cordial to allies who were dying for their cause during the recent war in this specific AU, it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to be good and nice and friendly towards any and every person they come across in the rest of it. In other AUs, sure, in other projects written by other people, absolutely, in other nonsense written by me, even, yeah absolutely I'll allow them to be nice. But here specifically they're still annoying evil disaster creatures who might kill any mortal for the heck of it just to see what happens. They just do it less often because they don't have a thousand Umaiar, ten thousand Orcs and a hundred dragons to back them up this time. So if they do the killing they'll have to face consequences this time, and they really wouldn't like that, so they play nice for the sake of, you know, not being murdered in their outnumbered, outmatched current state lmao.