browngirl

So, having posted my last story till whenever, here's a rec and then a meme. One of the features of the Hobbit movie/book fandom which I really love is its inventiveness; there are so many wonderfully exploratory stories about Hobbit and Dwarven cultures, culture clashes, conceptions and practices of gender and orientation, and so on, it's an embarrassment of riches.

"Belladonna's Teachings" is such a story, by the redoubtable and hugely talented

hobbitdragon (also on Tumblr!). In it, "Belladonna taught her child a great deal about how to stay safe in a world dangerous to women. So when a lot of intimidating dwarves barge into Bilbo's house to take her on what sounds like a suicide mission, this Bilbo is not as unprepared as she might have been." This Bilbo is a butch, and due to her mother's lessons and cultivation of her hobbit-sense is much more sensible than canon Bilbo, and this tale follows her adventures most fascinatingly.

I feel a little guilty, because on seeing the grand stories that truly explore the implications of gender variations, part of my reaction is relief as I write my little gender swap tales, since there are other gender swap stories about much wider aspects of existence than het romances so I can let my focus stay narrow if I want. Maybe I shouldn't let myself off the hook to write meaty universe explorations instead of little smutty bonbons, but I can't imagine what I would say that authors such as

hobbitdragon aren't saying in the most wonderfully, intelligently thoughtful ways.