This story has been a long years' labor of love.  The first germs for it came in the summer of 2004, evolving from the private jokes of a few friends about the sheer humor of watching the Manly Men of Minas Tirith being so thoroughly humiliated.  The "It's not a skirt; it's a skort!" line, and accompanying skirt-flipping action, dates to this time and is, alas, not mine.

I wrote the first scene for it (Eowyn dressing Faramir) either that fall or the fall after, and began to show it to more friends.  Believe it or not, Faramir was even more of a drama queen in the first draft.

Drafting began in earnest around 2006, and in that year I got as far as Faramir digging his way through the manuscripts.  A few summers later I got as far as Pippin's Mad Dash Through Town--the rest (some 15,000 words) is new material written for the LotR GFIC Big Bang Challenge.

With such a long history, the list of acknowledgments I have for this fic is great.  Everyone who listened to me read excerpts aloud, read copies of cookies, and otherwise encouraged me to write this crack: Angie, Chrissy, Jessy, GoldVermilion, Raksha, Thundera, SkuldNevermore, and Dreamflower--without your tireless work this fic would not be what it is today.  Especial thanks to Thundera, my beta for this fic, who pointed out some endemic problems in the scenario and gave me last-minute comments, to GoldVermilion likewise, and to SkuldNevermore for drawing me a brown-eyed Pip.  ;)  Thundera is also responsible for the second title of the story,Real Men Wear Corsets.

References and allusions:

"I'll eat my head" - Mr. Grimwig in Dickens' Oliver Twist

"The Queen would have you in her closet" - adapted from the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Compleat Wks. of Wm. Shkspr. Abridged

Arwen's red dress - straight out of movieverse

the Khandis - a phonetically fiddled version of Candace (at least, if you pronounce it like an American), the ancient title of the Queen of Ethiopia