elennalore

 Looks like I haven’t really been active here anyway. But I’m reading a queer romantasy book I really enjoy, A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske.

I continued the SWG 30-Day Character Study!

Day 16 of SWG 30-Day Character Study. My character is Mairon | Sauron | Annatar.

Today's prompt: Down Memory Lane, Part Three. Imagine your character keeping a box of little mementoes that are important to them. Write a list, make a sketch, or create a fanwork where these mementoes feature.

I drew Annatar's box of memories he kept locked in his room in Ost-in-Edhil. The list of items:

- a collection of Celebrimbor's notes, and notes and diagrams they have made together
- an unused love potion (it wasn't needed, after all)
- Celebrimbor's handkerchief
- a ring and a bracelet Celebrimbor gave to Annatar as a gift
- an amethyst rock from Mordor
- a vial of molten lava from Sauron's forge in Mordor, sealed with magic
- a lock of Melkor's hair he gave to Mairon as a keepsake before sending him away

Happy New Year 2026!

For some time, I've felt like that fic writing won't come as easily to me as before, and I've allowed myself to not write if I feel like it. After S&D 2025, there was actually a month when I didn't write anything, but then I returned writing with a new chapter for my FCL-Silm crossover, and an entry for a SWG monthly challenge, Cinnamon Rolls, which is romantic fluff about Mairon/Eönwë. (I decided there are too few fics about that pairing.)

As the New Year was approaching, I felt ready to take a break from my writing hobby, content to be reading fic instead, but the SWG challenge prompts did it again: I found myself starting a new fic already today.

It's nothing much, only a short entry for one of the last year's SWG monthly challenges I can still pick as New Year's Resolution amnesty, but it's about Maedhros, whom I don't write very often even though he's one of my favourite characters, and it feels like Maedhros might give me a fresh start for this writing year.

I finished and posted a fic!
Vacation does wonders to a person.

Day 15 of SWG 30-Day Character Study. My character is Mairon | Sauron | Annatar.

Today's prompt: Big Ideas, Part Two. Using one of the big ideas from Prompt 14, revise an existing fanwork so that this idea is more strongly emphasized or create a new fanwork that brings this idea to the center of the piece.

I took the idea of Mairon as a muse - Mairon wants to inspire! I think that Mairon inspired not only Celebrimbor, but also Melkor. In fics, Melkor often calls him "Little Flame", which could be seen symbolically as the flame of inspiration.

I returned to my day 3 drabble and wrote a related drabble from Melkor's perspective, using the idea of Mairon as muse.

You can read in on SWG!

I finished writing and editing my fic for My Slashy Valentine exchange. I had a good time writing it as I happen to like the pairing a lot, and can't wait for it to be published on Valentine's day. I asked for an extension I thought I might need because of busy time IRL. I wouldn't have needed it, in the end, but now Ao3 has an issue, and their downtime is extended, or the site won't load for me, so I'm glad that I have that extension in case I'm not able to post it this evening because of that issue.

I wish I could tell you more about the fic, but I can't until the recipient has got it. Let me just say that it's the longest one I've written since TRSB.

Day 12 of SWG 30-Day Character Study. My character is Mairon | Sauron | Annatar.

Today's prompt: Down Memory Lane, Part Two. Think about the rites of passage your character went through. These can be mundane things like learning to walk, their first kiss, or taking an exam; formal ceremonies like a coming-of-age ritual, graduation or wedding; or life-changing events. Which steps did your character take on the way to who they are?

According to Wikipedia, a rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a change of status in society. This definition in mind, I'll make a list of such events in Mairon's life.

1. Entering into Eä
Not all Ainur entered into the created universe, but Mairon was among those who did. (We never hear about those other Ainur). This connects him to the world in a fundamental level. It's an irreversible step and connects him to the Arda until the end of the world.

2. Joining Melkor
This is a step that changes Mairon's whole narrative, and turns him, previously the "golden boy" of the Ainur, an outcast and an enemy. He leaves his old life behind, severing all contact with those who were important to him. He never seems to regret his radical choice (unless briefly when meeting with Eönwë in the aftermath of the War of Wrath).

3. Leaving Melkor
This is another important milestone in Mairon's life. There is some debate on when this happens. Did he flee and hide from Melkor's scorn and wrath after Lúthien and Huan defeated Mairon in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, as some people think, or did he eventually return to Melkor so that they were only separated when Melkor was imprisoned in the War of Wrath? My personal headcanon is the latter option, but the text sources can really be read either way. In any case, after this step, Mairon starts to operate as an independent agent, instead of serving someone else. A big step for a Maia. It seems that this is also an extremely difficult step for him, for it takes hundreds of years for him to do anything worth mentioning.

4. Becoming Annatar
Mairon was a shapeshifter and master of disguise, but at this point, he tries something completely new: to maintain a disguise and a persona for hundreds of years in a hostile (for him) environment to achieve his goals. My headcanon, as a Silvergifting shipper, is that this period, and especially his relationship with Celebrimbor, involuntarily changed his character in ways he had not expected. I think that this was the time of his greatest personal development – first for the good, and then, for the worse. But the worse part is linked to the next, crucial step.

5. Creating the One Ring
I always read it so that the One Ring has a part of Mairon's spirit in it. The Ring is a part of him, and by creating it, he does something to himself, an alteration that can be seen as distortion and breaking of his psyche. He also becomes obsessed with his initial plan and loses his ability for empathy and love.

6. Losing his ability to take a fair form
Mairon's body was destroyed in the downfall of Númenor, but he fled in spirit. However, he was never able to take a beautiful form again. This must have hit him hard, for from this point on, he stopped calling himself Mairon. He knew he wasn't "the admirable one" anymore.

7. The Ring destroyed
Together with the Ring, the whole of Sauron's realm in Mordor collapsed and his weakened spirit was blown away. This can be seen as the ultimate death of the Maia once known as Mairon. It was the end – or was it? Some fans, and fanfic writers, don't think so, but continue his story even from here.

8. New life in Valinor
This is full headcanon and fanon territory, but some fanfic writers (myself included) like to think that Sauron's spirit survived the cataclysm. Most often, he ends in Valinor in some form or other (a spirit, a cat, an eldritch monster, or his previous admirable self). It's the time of new beginnings and second changes. Thankfully, Elves can be re-embodied, and the Door of Night may open some day.

Day 10 of SWG 30-Day Character Study. My character is Mairon | Sauron | Annatar.

Today's prompt: What's in a Name? Research the meaning of your character's name. Think about how that name fits the character but also what the name might more subtly imply about your character.

Ah, Mairon. He has perhaps more names than any other Tolkien character, and yet, I learned his original name only when I returned to fandom in 2020. Was I aware of it before? I don't think I was. Learning that he was called "the admirable one, precious", changed the whole perspective of seeing him as a character for me. Mairon was not a faceless villain – Sauron, the abhorred one – but a multidimensional character whom someone had once named "precious" - like other people, much later, named the One Ring that perhaps had a piece of his spirit inside.

Mairon - "the admirable" and Tar-Mairon "King excellent" were the names he preferred to use for himself, at least until the fall of Númenor. (See also my day 1 post on this). I think that the name Mairon suits him very well. It's related to the Quenya adjective maira that means admirable, excellent, precious, splendid, sublime [Source: Eldamo]. Some of these words sound like something you describe a beautiful object, some of them speak about great skill. Mairon had many skills (metal-craft and con-lang maker, shape-shifter, inspirer, singer and poet) and he was beautiful to look at if he wanted – until he lost the ability to take a beautiful form in the downfall of Númenor.
Tar-Mairon is how he wanted to be remembered, but the claim is wildly exaggerated. He never was an excellent ruler.

Sauron was how the Elves and other free peoples of Middle-earth called him, and it sounds like it is a distortion of the name Mairon. It is related to Quenya adjective saura, meaning cruel, evil, vile; stinking, foul; bad, unhealthy, ill, wretched [Eldamo]. This adjective is used to describe stinking, bad smelling things, and Tolkien had mentioned that the Maiar had a definite smell and for the evil spirits it was an unpleasant one. The name Sauron could be translated as "Stinky", then. Did the good-looking Maia of many skills become a stinky spirit in the end? That's what Tolkien seems to point at here. Many of these descriptive words sound more like food gone bad than something formidable and scary. Even his villain-name has more ambiguity than being a simple villain. For all we know, he could be a piece of excellent cheese gone moldy.

Linguistic source: Eldamo

Day 8 of SWG 30-Day Character Study. My character is Mairon | Sauron | Annatar.

Today's prompt: The Mirror Cliche. Authors are often discouraged from describing their characters by having them look at their reflection in a mirror (or a pool, or a puddle, or whatever). For this one exercise, we want you to embrace the mirror cliche! Write a scene where your character sees their reflection. What do they see? What do they feel as they see it?

I didn't expect myself to focus on Angbang when I took this character study challenge, but today's drabble is again about Mairon's time in Angband and his complex relationship with Melkor. Here's my 100 word drabble: Obsidian Mirror.

No character study post today, it's been a busy start of the week and I think it'll continue to be so for a few days. And the next prompt will surely demand no less than an Angbang ficlet. But I'm happy that I have managed to do six prompts already!