#it can be excuse on annatars but i dont know what tyelpes excuse it

[arofili]

for the character ask meme: sauron?? >:3c

How I feel about this character: evil twink. terrible. i love him. for real tho i think fandom has woobified sauron to angband and back, and while i get people who are frustrated by us forgetting he’s a villain....like....he’s just so FUN, you know? he’s done so many things, he’s so complicated, why wouldn’t you want to play with what’s going on in his head? i know i do! there are days i want to just sit down and rewrite the entire legendarium from sauron’s POV, because he was there for all of it, causing trouble the whole time. my version of sauron is Evil And Loving It almost the whole way through - but he did it out of love, for melkor at first and then for himself, and while that’s no excuse for evil it’s a fascinating motivation.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: i mean, melkor, obvs. angbang’s probably the second biggest ship in the fandom after russingon, and it’s a GOOD ship. my particular flavor of angbang isn’t the abusive/controlling melkor kind, i like it when it’s reciprocated and sincere - though there’s still absolutely room for evil and possessiveness. idk, healthy(ish) angbang is just more interesting to me? like there’s gonna be a power dynamic there, but i’m so much more interested in mairon having almost equal footing in his relationship than him being some pawn of melkor - i think that makes the times where he has the harsh realization that he’s not equal, just almost equal, even more impactful. like, he can tell melkor “no” and melkor will listen - except when he doesnt. idk, i like that more than him being afraid of saying no at all. (though i certainly do enjoy other versions of angbang! this is just my favorite) Like, i think Sauron carries his love for Melkor through everything he does after the first age. At first he’s doing it all for Melkor, thinking about when he breaks his master out of the void, and then slowly starts to realize that wait, that might not happen. but he keeps going anyway, with melkor as his grounding for what he’s doing, as he becomes more invested in his own future.

THAT BEING SAID i also love silvergifting because im PREDICTABLE. again, my flavor of sauron is one that’s in love with melkor first and foremost and always intentionally planning to fuck celebrimbor over, but the trope of sauron being like “i’ll seduce Tyelpe into evil, it worked when Melkor did it to me” “didn’t Melkor fall in love with you though?” “SHUT UP” becomes Annatar in a way that he almost forgets who he used to be, which is also interesting, but i’m the kinda person who wants Sauron always consciously aware of every thing he does to Tyelpe-  I want him feeling guilty about it by the end, but, importantly, doing it anyway.

[cw rape] Sauron/Maedhros is also really fascinating to me, especially since it’s (almost) always nonconsensual... it’s a good reminder that sauron is at the end of everything evil and practically irredeemable. and i’m more interested in mae’s feelings on this ship than i am sauron’s, considering sauron is abusing him because melkor wants him to (and he probably wants to toy with maedhros too) and isn’t particularly apologetic about it. ALTHOUGH. sauron maybe fucking with Maedhros to the extent of actually pretending he cares, that he’s genuinely here for Mae - that is also some really fucked up interesting shit especially as foreshadowing for Silvergifting.... [that being said! i linked a fic up there that has consensual sauron/maedhros and oohhh boy is it good! heed the warnings, and it’s a modern AU ft. abusive!melkor, but definitely check it out if you’re interested in these two!]

I can get down on other Sauron ships (like him and the Nazgul, him and Ar-Pharazon) but most of those are Sauron playing a game of chess - but, critically, not making the same mistakes he made with Tyelpe. he keeps himself detached and distant, not actually falling in love.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Eonwe!! I looooove headcanons about him and Eonwe having been bros in the past! makes everything at the end of the war of wrath so much more tragic :)

Sauron and Aule are also great, I think Aule was fatherly toward him and heartbroken to lose him. Which leads me to: Sauron and Curumo/Saruman, considering they were both disciples of Aule - and perhaps Curumo tried to replace Mairon after everything went down, but never quite could... Them having been friends puts their collaboration in LOTR into a different perspective, too. it’s sooo juicy to think of Saruman coming to Middle-earth determined to be Better than Sauron was, to prove to Aule that he’s the superior Maia, maybe even hoping that he can convince Sauron to repent...and then falling into the same trap of evil, being outsmarted by the friend he always wanted to impress, being cast aside and defeated. 

AND i’ll also throw in that he and Thuringwethil were definitely best buds in Angband, sorry I don’t make the rules. she’s an exasperated lesbian vampire who has to put up with his disaster gay stunts all the time, less of his lieutenant and more of the friend who tries to keep him out of trouble!

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk, he’s evil? like unrepentantly evil. we woobify him, and i’ve done a lot of that in this post already, but it’s worth really making it clear that he IS very evil. [cw rape] and i definitely think he raped maedhros, and probably tyelpe and a lot of other people too. which is just awful awful awful no matter what way you slice it. so like yeah, i feel for the dude, and it’s hard for me to wrestle with how fun and sexy i think sauron is but at the same time be a huge maedhros stan. it’s strange how we as fandom can excuse murder and war crimes and torture and shit but we draw the line at sexual abuse (which!!!! is bad and shouldn't be excused!!!). like all of the other things are horrifying and terrible and aren’t condoned irl, but in fiction i guess it’s like “meh, violence is fine, i stan a villain” but then this other violent thing is Not Remotely Ok because it’s also sexual. (again!!! not saying that we should be ok with sexual violence!!!!! more like...questioning why we’re ok with other kinds of violence, why sexual things in any form is more taboo. tho im saying this as a person who enjoys a good gory fic, so. yeah. im ramlbling at this point)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: frankly i dont KNOW, he did SO MUCH in canon already?? i want a more fleshed out, detailed version of everything he did (remember when i said i daydream about rewriting the legendarium from his POV??) but i think events wise he’s done EVERYTHING he could do lmao.