ironfoot-mothafocka

[ironfoot-mothafocka]

The first time I’ve written Gimli for a long time, perhaps ever, despite him being a beloved character for many years.

Written for dwarrowtober without a prompt and inspired by the prompt ‘Feud’.

As the only one in Minas Tirith who can speak khuzdul, Gimli is tasked by Aragorn to interrogate a prisoner of war captured after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. A dwarf who is in the service of Sauron, this stranger stirs up old hatred within Gimli and challenges some of his hidden fears about belonging and the nature of evil.

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Dwarrowtober 2024: Duty

Dáin has a duty to his longtime friend and brother in melancholic moods. Written during a time of grief.

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Nostalgic for 2 years ago? I've compiled all 12 of my short oneshots for Dwarrowtober 2022 into an Ao3 fic.

An introduction to the far places of Middle-Earth, where royal princes live in exile, monsters raise their tentacles above the waves of an Eastern sea, and ancient rituals mark the coming of death.

A few snapshots in time of the dwarves of the Red Mountains, from the might of the dwarven rings of power to family life, with a cast of my original dwarven characters.

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Late, as usual, but there's always time for Dwarrowtober! As ever, inspired by the yearly challenge laid out by @mrkida-art.

I only got 4 fics done during October due to life stuff, but there's more to come over Winter. They explore the myriad of my Eastern dwarven OCs, plus some familiar faces and new subjects.

Crown

An Eastern dwarf king, haunted by his traumatic past, contemplates what his father's crown symbolises.

Durin's Day and Family

On the eve of an annual holiday celebration, one Ironfist dwarf visits her very special, and very complicated, family.

Aid

Azanulbizar was many long years ago, but for newly crowned King Dáin Ironfoot, there are expectations of repayment to the other dwarf-holds for blood shed in aid of his ancestors.

Feud

On the Fields of Pelennor, an injured soldier of Rohan is at the mercy of a dwarf in league with his enemies.

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Written for this year’s @tolkienocweek for prompts on Days 1 and 2: worldbuilding and canon/OC relationship.

Rating: Gen-Teen

Relationships: Dáin Ironfoot/Original Dwarf Character (M/M)

Word count: 6.7k

Warnings: descriptions of death and injury; alcohol use

Summary:

Like the Lonely Mountain, King Dáin Ironfoot has stood alone. There is one, however, who has caught his interest: Khalei Iskbanâl, a healer and prince from the Red Mountains.

After the remnants of battle-smoke clear, Dáin Ironfoot muses on rebuilding not only Erebor, but his life and finding love again.

A tale of losing, dreaming, fighting, and weathering the storm.

[ironfoot-mothafocka]

Happy Hanukkah! Again!

#Dwecember - Eight Nights

So I was going to write dwarf-inspired chanukah fic, but then life happened. Still, here's some unapologetically Jewish holiday fic featuring dwarves. Menorah lighting, Stiffbeard customs, fried foods, remembrance and inter-cultural relations.

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The Eight Nights

“I don’t understand the time of year, though—” gasped Gaelan as he huffed down the Ereborian street after Vadlik. Though Gaelan stood head and shoulders above the tallest dwarves, it was still a tight squeeze. He’d lived in Dale for ten years now, and never before had he been inside the mountain when the Festival of the Clans was happening. From Vadlik’s excited commentary in the month leading up to the eight nights, he knew that it was a big occasion for not only the Stiffbeards, but for all of the houses of the dwarves. Vadlik slowed, and proffered a leather drinking vessel to Gaelan. The Man took it warily and sniffed it, almost spluttering at the pungent stench of neat spirit. He swigged it anyway; it was colder than he had anticipated, with a blizzard howling down from the nothern hills. The stone under his feet was chilly enough to sap away any warmth his thick socks provided, and Vadlik’s breath puffed out before him in a cloud of wispy vapour. “I don’t know why,” said Vadlik after considering this for a moment. He shrugged. “Something to do? It is cold at this time of year, and we need the light of candles and lamps. The light helps us to see, binds us together. Makes us remember.” Vadlik tapped the side of his skull with a thick, leather-covered finger. At least he had the foresight to bring gloves and a hat with ear-flaps. “Remember is very important to all khazad. Darkness better for remember. The fire good, see many thing in fire when darkness is around.”

Even though the Stiffbeard’s Westron was still quite broken, Gaelan knew exactly what point he was making. There was, he supposed, a reason why even in the religious rites of Men, candles were lit in Temples and a sea of light transformed the prayers of petitioners into an otherworldly experience. Telling stories of old legends in the darkness of a winter night was enhanced by crackling red flames, which leapt and twisted together to create the forms of creatures and figures of ancient times. Remembrance was aided by candlelight, the same way that the races of Middle-Earth had been aided by the rising of the first sun. It was linked in ways that Gaelan couldn’t fully put to words.

They walked together in silence, Gaelan’s huge frame turning heads. Not only was he a Man, of course, but he was also close to seven foot tall. Some dwarves goggled up at him with their jaws hanging open, but Vadlik simply strode in front of him with a proud, disdainful stare, jutting out his jaw as if daring any of them to comment. Gaelan didn’t mind though; he knew his dwarven friend took it more personally (as he suspected he would do if their roles were reversed), but he knew for some more sheltered dwarves it was rare to see someone this tall so far inside Erebor. Still, he greeted everyone with a smile and a ‘Shamukh!’ where appropriate, Vadlik’s liquor burning his oesophagus as he tipped more of it down his throat.

Finally, they stopped in the middle of a square in the Eastern district of Erebor. Here was the confluence of the Red Mountain diaspora among the Longbeards, an enclave where East met West. Gaelan had spent time here, and he smiled down as a few of the dwarves around him waved and shouted his name jovially. Vadlik hugged some other Stiffbeards who were huddled around a brazier at one corner of the square, warming their hands with their hair bedecked in multi-coloured ribbons and the dwarrowdams sporting incredible hats. Something sweet-scented was burning, an incense that Gaelan had last smelled when he had travelled through Kikuama. He breathed in the robust, smoky air, feeling the hair in his nose tingle. A tug at his sleeve brought his gaze down. A small dwarf child was reaching up towards him, shaking something clutched in their fist. He bent down and opened his palm: a small, sticky pastry fell into it. “S’ganit!” Exclaimed Vadlik, who had drunk half the bottle of fire-water and was now weaving. “Very good to eat!” Gaelan popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly oily but coated in a thick layer of sugary syrup that cut through its density. It was delicious. He noticed then that an array of fried foods were being hawked around the edges of the square from various stalls: potato-cakes floated on top of vats of oil; other vendors sold salted, cheese-filled doughs from hand-carts; and a queue of dwarves lined up outside a nearby house, which had the shutters of its kitchen window thrown wide open and a portly Stiffbeard dwarrowdam tipping out rows of s’ganit by the tray full into the hands of customers. “Is this another custom?” Gaelan asked, as he chased Vadlik to the cheese-pastry seller. “Yes,” Vadlik said, waving a handful of coin towards the dwarf, “we have custom to light many oil lanterns, and therefore we eat everything fried in oil!” It was a loose connection to Gaelan, but he didn’t mind. Oil-fried foods was one of his favourite food groups.

After Vadlik had bought Gaelan and himself a dozen pastries and fried potato hashes, which he doused with a dollop of soured cream, they crouched down on the porch of a closed shop-front to eat. “So — what will happen tonight, then?” Gaelan asked, his eyes straying to the huge, unlit candelabra that had been erected in the centre of the square. It was eight-pronged, like a trident, built elaborately from brass. One of the candle-holders was positioned higher than the others at the left-most side, while the others were still lower. It stood around twice his height. “One of the elders of Stiffbeards will light this tonight,” Vadlik said, gesturing towards the candelabra. “They will make blessing for all of us, for our Clan, for our homeland.” “And each of the eight nights,” Gaelan went on, “is to commemorate a different house of the dwarves?” “The eighth night — final night — is for all of us. The seven coming together as one,” Vadlik corrected. “Tonight, night five, is a special night for Stiffbeards. Stiffbeard night tonight. Many songs, many dances. You see costume dances — dwarves will dress as animals and dance: many will dress as one mammoth!” “A mammoth! You mean, one for the head, and one for the arse?” Gaelan laughed, imagining him and Vadlik taking on the role of mammoth-dancing. He’d much prefer to be a head than a backside, though. “No — many dwarf! Sometimes six will be one mammoth on… ah—” Vadlik mimed something being attached to the bottom of his legs. “Stilts? They dance as a mammoth… on stilts?” “Yes,” said Vadlik, raising his eyebrow at him, “no short mammoth. Tall mammoth.” He supposed he was right about that. As more and more dwarves crowded into the square, Vadlik recounted tales of his youth as a drummer for a band of mammoth-dancers, and how competitive difference dancers got; not just those dressed as mammoths, but those who performed as a whole host of beasts and creatures for the fifth-night carnival. Snow leopards, birds, dragons, and even nuruk, ancestral spirits, all came alive in intricate costumes — stitched with a mosaic of spiralling, glittering beadwork, and even outfitted with moving eyes and mouths.

Before that, however, the lights had to be kindled. A hush fell over the square as an elderly Stiffbeard mounted a set of steps next to the candelabra, assisted by a carven cane. Their face was so deeply lined and brown that they looked as though they had been hewn from an ancient oak tree. Their plaited hair stuck out on either side of a huge, tiered fur hat, and their shoulders bowed under the weight of yak-pelt furs. Someone passed them a torch from below the steps, and they raised it high above their head. A few, commanding words of khuzdul were uttered, though their dialect and accent was so thick that Gaelan could barely understand with his limited knowledge of the dwarven tongue. Vadlik, however, intoned the set responses next to him solemnly along with the rumble of the crowd. The Stiffbeard elder bent forwards slightly, and touched the tip of the torch to the first oil well, the largest of the eight. It went up in a spurt of yellow flame. Then, slowly, they lit five more. Even at a distance, Gaelan felt the heat on his forehead, and shouted in a cheer as the whole square erupted in screaming and clapping. He grinned caught sight of Vadlik’s face, dark eyes reflecting the light in their depths. The beginning of a memory, perhaps. “Khag sameakh!” Vadlik said, gripping Gaelan’s forearm. “Khag sameakh, Vadlik,” Gaelan replied. Tonight he would remember the time they met, the words of khuzdul he had been taught that he still held dear, the many times he had sat at a cramped, food-laden dwarven table in a Stiffbeard’s house and been shown boundless hospitality. Tonight, his heart got just a little more dwarven.

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Beautiful artwork for my fic, so grateful for this! 

Of Dwarves and Hobbits:

Huzzah! This is a piece I did for Thorin’s Spring Forge 2023! This piece accompanies a work done by the lovely, luminous, and majestic @ironfoot-mothafocka whose piece “Of Dwarves and Hobbits��, you can read right here!

Once again, thank you so much for working with me!

This event was so fun, and I am for sure going to sign up again next year!

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Thank you so much for the incredible artwork for my fic! :D 

my second piece for@thorinsspringforge!! i worked with @ironfoot-mothafocka on a fic about thorin getting the shit beaten out of him :(. Not everything is pain, but good lord, get this man a break.

the fic is HERE

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Being employed as a servant in Grór's court is not easy

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full offense but none of you would have ever survived fanfiction.net in 2009

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I’m sorry… WHAT?!

Seriously: When do you ever just sit and think about the fact that Ian Katz of the Guardian (recently boycotted for its transphobia) and the BBC (routinely protested for its transphobia) was married to Justine Roberts of Mumsnet (a primary radicalizing hub for UK transphobia) for twenty-five years? Most people don’t! I didn’t, until I heard it from the poet Roz Kaveney during an interview. It got trimmed from that piece, and I have been trying to wedge it into different pieces ever since, to no avail. Sometimes, when I talk to other trans people, I will mention that a top Guardian and/or BBC editor was married to the founder of Mumsnet; almost always, when I mention this, I will find out that they didn’t know.

Here’s something else that happens when I tell a trans person that Ian Katz (Channel 4, BBC Newsnight, the Guardian) was married to Justine Roberts (Mumsnet) for 25 years. They will, without fail, make the following noise: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then they’ll inhale a little, and then they’ll do a controlled little exhale. Then they’ll say yeah, that explains it. Or, yeah. That makes total sense.

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Damn guess I look like a woman while also resembling thumb with acne. My beard is also pretty weak as you can tell from this photo :( since anon thinks all trans men apparently look the same

Anon: there’s nothing wrong with a) acne, b) not having facial hair, c) scars, d) having a mental illness, e) not ‘passing’.

Stop fixating on trans peoples appearances. That’s playground shit.

Your poor, poor parents. You're gonna make yourself look like an acne riddled thumb with a half assed pubey beard for the rest of your life, and now they're gonna have to see your scarred ass chest without nips to distract, too. You're hacking off healthy body parts for clout like a dumbass, and wanting everybody to applaude you for it and brainwash themselves into thinking you resemble anything male. Mental illness at its peak.

everyone point and laugh at the asshole who thinks their opinion of my body means anything to me!

if anyone was wondering what terfs & co actually say about trans men when they don't have to worry about their face being attached to it, this is it. this is what's hiding behind the "care" and "pity" and other bullshit they project – to them, we're all a bunch of ugly mentally ill dumbasses destroying our poor innocent parents' lives and brainwashing the people around us.

but hey, anon, if it makes you feel any better, i promise i'm still happier than you'll ever be! that's the magic of not wasting your energy on harassing random people for daring to exercise their bodily autonomy. you should try it sometime!

oh, and you'll have to let me know when i'm supposed to get all that clout for transitioning. it's been seven years and all i've gotten is shitheads like you hating me more and more, so i think it might've gotten lost in the mail.

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FAG/TRANSFAG: written by Paul Davis (1998) for FTM newsletter issue. 40

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Stages of Decomposition, Embroidery by calicoranger @ Etsy

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Same energy as Gimli on the horse in the warg ambush

“Forward. I mean. Charge forward”

A Stiffbeard dwarf and their companion. Which is a cat! Big one too. These cats are commonly used by this clan for pulling sleds and hunting (and in rarer cases, warfare).

[ironfoot-mothafocka]

Loren Cameron

Sad to hear of the passing of Loren Cameron. In the earliest days of my transition, it seemed like his photos could be found everywhere online where there was a discussion of transmasculinity. His work was so inspiring to me!

When I started Testosterone, I hung this^ photo in my closet as inspiration. 15 years later, it still hangs there.

Cameron’s photography and writing was first published in the 1996 book, Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits, which not only documented his transition but also the lives of #trans men he knew. Body Alchemy became a double 1996 Lambda Literary Award winner.

Cameron also published a pioneering e-book in the late 90s, Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery. It was one of the earliest collections of photos of transmasc surgeries along with 1st-person stories about surgery experiences and post-op erogenous sensation.

More about Cameron from Wikipedia.