Melian? The maia? She cowers in her woods; all her mind bent on hiding from me. You have a very active imagination if you think she could do me any harm.
And her daughter… What makes you think I wouldn’t crush the little lily under my foot? Or pluck her petals one by one? Her Ainur blood must make her very resilient. We might have decades together, she and I, before she wilted. What do you think of that, thou screeching kettle of a piper!
I draw many ridiculous and fluffy Melkors and the reason for this is because my artistic abilities are not up to the task of drawing him as fluid and horrifying as he sometimes appears in my head. But today I bit the bullet and at least TRIED to draw the thing where he makes you really regret not telling him where Gondolin is.
This is what I picture Angband looking like from the top-down. Most of the fortress is subterranean, making this not even the upper most third of the map. Near the top of the center spire is where you will find Hurin’s chair. (Other above-ground structures that didn’t make it into the picture: Dragon hatchery and stable, Maethros’s shackle, and secret passage ways.)
I want my Angband to look like it was a solid, fugly square brick of a fortress that has been retrofitted with spare Utumno-parts and upgraded to suit all Melkor’s Beleriand-Conquering needs.
It’s a mix of designs: impossibly grand scaled pseudo-gothic architecture (to let you know that a Vala lives there), with battlements that are still the old no-frills anti-Oromë defense system left over from the Utumno days, all stuck in a blender with a bunch of lopsided spikes and melty Giger-esque doom.
Sauron provided the architecture and floor plan (complete with indoor plumming and practical considerations like “where do we put all the orcs”), and Melkor provided the asymmetry, the underground caverns, and the carelessly assembled volcanic hellscape.
What I like about them SURPRISE I actually really, really like Luthien. She’s kind of just this awesome epic hero who is there to kick ass and get her boyfriend back, and to me it seems like there’s less stress put on her moral coding, or whatever— like, her successes don’t feel like they’re attributed to her virtue so much as her badassery?
She’s actually capable of subterfuge! Which leads to success, as opposed to the 99.9% failure rate of all the more noble and glorious charges against Angband! Despite being able to lie and dress up like a vampire and make Thû piss himself, she’s completely adorable???
Also in they Lay of Leithian, she’s very sweet to Carcharoth when she puts him to sleep. ;w; That wins points with me so hard. NO ONE IS EVER NICE TO THE FORCES OF DARKNESS.
What I dislike about them Her description as the “fairest”. I roll my eyes at thee, descriptor.
Favourite moment Yo, she fucking reads Sauron for filth and then knocks Melkor out, that shit is intense.
Least favourite moment I don’t really like how she kind of disappears from the narrative as soon as the Silmaril is recaptured?
A situation with this character that I want to see explored more Oh you know, her actual thoughts and feelings on stuff— you know, that thing we barely get for any of the characters in Tolkien.
An interesting AU for this character Anything Dark Luthien!! *w* But also, anything where she gets to have more interaction with Team Angband?
Aaaand I guess my headcanon that she personally fought and took Thuringwethil’s wings is actually an AU…. >v>;
OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship) I am all for Luthien/Thuringwethil. I actually have a thing I’d like to write/draw for them someday… SOMEDAY.
Other ships? I kind of… guilty-ship her and Melkor in some scenarios? MEGA-guilty ship her with Celegorm in some others???? (don’t look at meAHAHAHAi’mtrash)
BROTP UwU magic doggy friend
NOTP I don’t have any particularly strong feelings in that regard i guess…
An assortment of headcanons! -Luthien is aaaalllllll about that bass. ❤
-I have some fairly complex headcanons about Maiar and how they are able to distribute their powers, which helps to account for things like Huan being able to beat Thû and Luthien being able to put a Vala to sleep. Basically, it’s just a matter of putting points into the right stats? XD Like, Sauron, who is described as being one of (if not THE most) powerful Maiar, had a lot of points to begin with, and distributed them pretty evenly across all his stats. But a smaller Maia, like Huan, could take a shape and just PUT EVERYTHING THEY GOT into ONE category and come out superior in that element. My theory is that Huan was a Maia or Oromë who had some grievance with Sauron in the Spring of Arda that led him to take a shape into which he basically poured all of his points into a specific destiny, which was to kick Sauron’s ass at some future date. He gave up changing shape and even speaking (more than three times, anyway) for the sake of being able to do this one thing. Luthien is similar, in that she’s got only half of Melian’s power, but it’s ALL put into the Songs and Illusions category— and Song magic is powerful stuff, as we know! The fabric of Arda is music-based, so she’s got a very versatile and potent ability at her disposal. (It may also be that her shortened lifespan had something to do with the distribution of her power.)
Oh man I forgot I had these Huan and Luthien headcanons floating around… I should bring back this character meme! It was good brain fodder… :3
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 