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| {{user infobox
| | My primary online handle in recent years is Eldy, which was originally a shortened form of the name I joined Tolkien Gateway under. I became an avid Tolkien fan as a kid and later went on become a forum admin, webmaster, and independent Tolkien scholar. Most of my activity in Tolkien fandom has been centered on message boards, but I have from time to time attempted to give back to TG by making edits when I feel I have something to contribute. |
| | image=[[File:Ted_Nasmith_-_White_Ships_from_Valinor.jpg|275px]]
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| | name=Eldy (née Eldorion)
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| | othernames=Ellie Keener
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| | location=[[wikipedia:Maryland|Maryland]]
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| | birth=8 August 1994
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| | gender=Female
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| | eyes=Blue
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| | userboxes={{user lore-4}}
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| {{user balrogwings2}}
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| My real name is Ellie, but my primary online handle is Eldy. During the decade or so that I spent actively involved in online Tolkien fandom, I used the name Eldorion, though most people shortened it to Eldo. I've been an avid Tolkien fan for most of my life and I'm a former forum admin and webmaster as well as an independent Tolkien scholar. I turn to TG as a reference and to jog my memory, making use of well-cited articles, and sporadically make edits here when I feel I have something to contribute. | |
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| ==Names==
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| I indulge in the long fan tradition of picking an Elvish name and, after switching between "surnames" for several years, settled on Eldorion Nolondil, though on most sites I only used Eldorion. This is not a misspelling of [[Aragorn]] and [[Arwen]]'s son, but was originally the name of a character I briefly played on the [http://www.lotrplaza.com LOTR Plaza]. It means "son of the star-land" ([[Númenor]]) but due to the ambiguity of the element ''el-'' can also be interpreted as "son of the elf-land". The second part is a genuine Tolkienian name: [[Nolondil]], youngest son of [[Vardamir|Vardamir Nólimon]] and ancestor of [[Hallatan|Hallatan of Hyarastorni]]. I acquired the nickname Eldo independently on most sites where I used this name, but a couple people on the Plaza used Eldy instead. When I came out as [[Wikipedia:Transgender|trans]] several years later I switched exclusively to that version.
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| ==Background==
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| I first read [[The Hobbit]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]] in early 2004, when I was nine years old, and adored them. I already had an interest in fantasy but Tolkien fired my imagination like nothing else (not even Harry Potter) and his works have been a part of my life ever since. I read [[The Silmarillion]] and [[Unfinished Tales]] in the following several years. I did not watch the entire film trilogy until I was 12. Around 2008 I got more serious about studying Tolkien and began to work my way through [[The History of Middle-earth]] and [[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien]]. I ventured onto Tolkien forums starting at the end of that year because I was looking to discuss those works and test myself. My early participation in Tolkien fandom was dominated by Lore debates which proved a valuable educational experience in both Tolkien and rhetoric.
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| ==The Movies==
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| I have always enjoyed the [[Peter Jackson]] film adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'', but I have also always been critical of a number of changes made to the story during the adaptational process. Movie discussions quickly became the second area of the fandom that I explored. I have never objected to the mere existence of changes from the source material, but feel that many of the changes (and the motivations for some of them) displayed a lack of interest in fully engaging with the text. However, I have always distinguished between my opinion of the films as adaptations and my opinion of them purely as cinema. I have become more aware of certain flaws in the trilogy as I've learned more about cinema, but ''[[The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring|The Fellowship of the Ring]]'' in particular remains one of my favorite movies.
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| ==Forum governance==
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| I came into the fandom about a year after ''The Hobbit'' films had been officially announced, though still several years before any of them were actually released, and it was thanks to ''The Hobbit'' that I got my turn at running a forum. I was the moderator of the Movies forum at the LOTR Plaza for roughly a year, from October 2010 until August 2011, during the period when it was the most active English language Tolkien forum on the web. I was also the founder and owner/administrator of [http://www.hobbitmovieforum.com Forumshire: The Hobbit Movie Forum] from February 2011 to January 2016, after having started the site for members of the The-Hobbit-Movie.com's forum, which had just been shut down (the whole site is now offline). Forumshire grew to be the second-largest English language Tolkien forum, after TheOneRing.net, by 2013, and remained so for the remainder of my tenure as an administrator.
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| ==Tolkien scholarship==
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| I was fortunate in that my formative fannish experiences came largely in discussions with both self-taught Loremasters and published Tolkien scholars, primarily on the LOTR Plaza and [http://newboards.theonering.net TheOneRing.net's forums]. I was able to make something of a name for myself and after stepping down from running forums I returned more to this early passion. I have a sporadically-updated tumblr blog called [http://nolondil.tumblr.com/ Nolondil] where I've posted both new essays and some attempts at reworking old ideas that I'd previously posted on various forums. | |
My primary online handle in recent years is Eldy, which was originally a shortened form of the name I joined Tolkien Gateway under. I became an avid Tolkien fan as a kid and later went on become a forum admin, webmaster, and independent Tolkien scholar. Most of my activity in Tolkien fandom has been centered on message boards, but I have from time to time attempted to give back to TG by making edits when I feel I have something to contribute.
