Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Ever wonder what RL faces lie behind the horsey icons? Poke, prod, or blackmail (er, I mean encourage) your friends in the Riddermark to show off their faces! Obviously, keep it clean, and remember, COPPA rules prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from posting their picture. Sorry, federal rules, not ours.

Comments are allowed, but be kind!

To start things off, here I am, in front of Strawberry Field in Liverpool.

This was one of my favourite threads back in the day. It was brilliant to have snapshots of faces behind the icons and names. I remember too that it became a virtual travel-log and pet zone.

Here's me gearing up for another stint @ Ludlow hospital. Or not, I'm still rusty on the picture posting front. :o

Second attempt at pic posting. Ah, reliving the joys of posting 2005 ;) - with fat fingers on a tiny cell screen

Here’s a little help if you need it: https://www.lotrfanaticsplaza.com/foru ... p?f=8&t=22

I’ve had to drag out the laptop, complete with separate keyboard, to make anything other than short, simple posts. I can make a regular keyboard smoke, but my fingers move like snails on mobile devices.

My granddaughter taught me how to do the accented characters on my phone! Just hold down the letter you want accented, and the choices will appear above the letter. While still holding it down, drag your finger up to the character you want. I can’t tell you how happy that one little trick made me!

The real life Ellenweorc clan at its finest!!!!!! And this little Rowena also came out as transgender in the time we've been away, so I'm a non-binary freakazoid (said with love lol) that uses he him pronouns! First pic is me with the kids, (I know they've gotten so big right?!) Second was at my handfasting that we did for our 11th Anniversary, the hubs made me cry (jerkface hahah) and the third was for his birthday a few months ago.







Edit: and I have NOOOOO idea how to resize the darn photos sorry!

Quicky pronoun question: do you prefer female pronouns for your character or male ones? Some people separate, others don't, and I don't want to misgender IC or OOC.

This is a picture from last year that I took for an event on torn.com (If you ever find yourself on torn.com, my name there is Snoopy, if you want to find me.)
And yes, I love Snoopy, you could say I'm a snoopy addict. I collect snoopy plushies and other snoopy stuff.

One of the few pictures of my mundane self. Most 'good' pictures of me are taken in medieval clothing. LOL

Thanks, Eléo, works for me, now I just have to crack the picture coding. I used to have a directory on my website, that worked a treat in the old days. You'll see me, when you see me :roll:

Ah, so a link on my site loads no probs!

Me before lockdown on a weekend trip to Savannah versus me at work these days. (For the record, pre-lockdown was better!)

Gwai - I also much prefer pre-lockdown. I'm over this mask.

Good to see I'm not the only auld Cav' member suited & booted for the current campaign. This is me kitted up for cooking experimentation on nightshift. Needs must with all the greasy-spoons closed for business.

Well, I'm awfully glad I didn't title this thread "Riders Unmasked"!

Since we're all sporting our COVID-19 couture, here I am preparing or one of my biweekly grocery runs.

Time for my ugly mug up here! This is one of the few pictures of me NOT on a horse that I actually love, mostly because I got to meet Dwalin! Yes, that is me with Graham McTavish, who played Dwalin! (also yes, my shirt is a very loud plaid, everyone comments on that when I show them this picture, but it is my clan plaid, so I love it!)

Hope this doesn't display as terrifyingly large! Here I am a year ago, about to watch my team lose :/

Pardon my Gondorian self barging in here! I've always loved these picture threads. I was actually poking around The Mark to check up on @Eldrith's NPC, who just went to Findy's Apothecary shop in Minas Tirith. (I'm already loving to hate your character!) I know this is for you Rohirrim, but I can't resist adding to the masked faces on your page. Thanks for humoring me. This is the hubster and I getting ready to go out and rob some banks, erm I mean to weekly live-stream our priest & deacons doing the mass so everybody else can participate safely from their homes. I sewed these masks near the beginning of lockdown out of bandanas I pilfered from our dogs (washed, of course!). Have fun, everyone!

We love seeing all the RL faces, even Gondorian, @Finduilas Faelivrin ! Love the masks. Glad the dogs were willing to do their part during this global pandemic.

@Finduilas Faelivrin Two different Npc's, one here and one in Gondor. But of course... connected! Innocent men of course. Absolutely. Why isn't there a Halo emoji??

I would ask my masked picture but I don't want to spam this thread too much with my face. I was for several years the 'communication manager' for our parish, which included setting up Facebook developing several websites and maintaining it all. Got our church from Parish Church to Basilica. I even developed a streaming plan at the time. But there were alwayd more urgent things to handle... I AM glad it's my wonderful successor who has to deal with it now while I can watch mass from home.

Without the mask, showing off the new lorica I finished this spring

@Eldrith My characters are as you would think they are. I also use the correct pronouns in my posts. ;) Since I RP multiple characters I'll list my three main RPed ones. (As a side note, many of my characters are part of the LGBTQ+ community, though I don't always reference it because you know, politics and what not.)
Rowena - She/her
Audley - He/him
Rhys - He/him
@Finduilas Faelivrin OF COURSE YOU CAN POST HERE!!!!!!!! You're like an honorary Rohir. At least by decree of Rowena hahaha. Also I totally didn't recognize your husband with his mask on! I thought it was your daughter. OOPS
@Aodh Hammerhelm Sorry, hun... Don't sue me for not growing older. You know what they say--black don't crack. (I actually had this reality screwed into my brain around halloween last year when I was trying to do zombie make up and I couldn't make creases in my forehead by raising my eyebrows. It really frustrated me.)

@Aodh Hammerhelm Oh, you gave me an idea. Anyone brave enough to post a picture from when they first joined the Plaza alongside a more current one? I'll start:


This is me circa 2004.


And this is a fairly recent one.

So, I don't have accessible ones from when I joined. This one is within a couple years, in 2005. I think I originally joined in 2003? I don't remember, that was a long time ago.



And within the last year, standing court with a reenactment group



So yes, Aodh, I've aged some

Everyone has aged really well! I suspect a few people might have portraits hidden away in the attic...

Can't find one from back in 2003/4 - unless there are some hidden in the loft printed on actual physical paper (gasp!) - this is the oldest digital one I can dig up, from 2007.

Ohhh boy..

I think this was about 18 years ago..when I met @Eamila Bolger at the Lisse Fantasy Fair, which was LOTR themed that year.. We are still friends!! Married within the same year and kind of raised our children together apart on different continents!



These are at least 16 years old. This was my Finduilas dress that I wore to the plaza meet in London..(and ended up in the ER)

I know it says "riders unhorsed", but hey, I was riding a horse! For the first time in like 15 (?) years, so yeah, that's me riding a very tall Norwegian "Dølahest", okay, maybe not so tall, or scary, but yeah, I felt very proud afterwards. So this is this winter.
And this is me and the yellow blob, my youngest son.

This is me cirka 2003, obviously I haven't aged a bit, so happy this is the largest picture And this is actually from when I attended @Eldrith 's wedding (and it's me in my national dress)

@Amadhrill Love your national dress! And your yellow blob son is cute - I think he has your eyes. :smiley8:

There are five plaza members visible in that picture, including the bride. And at least one more is in there, invisible!

Faces! You all look so wonderful!

@Eldrith That picture seems so familiar. Did you post it on the Plaza before, way-back-when (ish)?

Here's a current selfie of me, taken this evening at the in-laws Memorial Day weekend cookout. I tried to get an older picture of me to post as well, but it refuses to upload and I give up for now.

Eldrith has posted many of those on Facebook. These of me a few years ago as well, but she was the photographer (Posting here since she thinks the Norse looks most Rohirric:

Whoops, let's try that again

Aaaaaw, I love getting to see everyone! Here's everyday me...



And because I'm super jealous of all the incredible costumes but tragically don't have anything medieval in my wardrobe, here's Civil War Reenactment me...

Here's the first biog pic I posted on the Plaza. It was taken in the summer of 2005. Somewhere in my archives there's a snap of Callum, my son, sporting the same haircut.

He was 3 when I joined the Riddermark in that faraway September, he'll be 18 this year.

@Karis Ziranphel : It DOES look rohirric!! It's your subconscious trying to tell you something! We really, really need to meet in person so I can do you a shoot. LOL

@Eldrith I almost joined Rohir back in '02, but couldn't deal with it being a requirement to talk about Dr.Pepper and Badgers. That has since fallen from use, but in the meantime Gondor settled in my heart. I will likely be a frequent visitor, but Ithilien is home. On the RL note, it would be wonderful to meet up and do a photo shoot again. Three years is enough for some change.

All my more recent pictures seem to have my husband in it, and since he's way handsomer than me (and more importantly doesn't want his face on the forum) I will have to go back a few years:

Fresh-faced, first year of my PhD (early 2015):


Later that year (I think during the week at a Benedictine Abbey where aforesaid husband and I first realized we loved each other EVEN THOUGH I BAWKED AT HIM LIKE A CHICKEN):


Edited to add the exhausted-after-four-years-of-PhD pic because I love my graduation hat:


And bonus Rohir-in-training pic:

You all look amazing!!! In particular I have fallen in love with @Karis Ziranphel, @Éolath and @Eldrith for the awesome Re-enactment costumes.

@Rowena Ellenweorc massive congratulations on successfully navigating Transitioning, and for your endless courage (we are not worthy!).

For now I'm still trying to crowbar my way into my old Photobucket account so I can share pictures of my LARP stuff, but in the meantime I found this little gem that was 'gifted' to me when I stepped down as ruler:-

*pops in* It's great seeing everyone! @Aodh Hammerhelm excellent map!

And-- @Éolath, that's a beautiful piece of armour. @Thalionwen That reenactment photo is gorgeous. Looks like it was a perfect day for it.

@Aodh Hammerhelm I’m so pleased your lovely maps are still around! I remember them being really useful back in the day. Bookmarking your page!

Y'all are so good looking. I tried to find a picture where I looked genuinely happy to be in a picture and wasn't pulling a silly face, and I finally found one.



My 30th birthday in Beijing on my last weekend working at an English language centre. The cake was a surprise from a friend at the end of the day, we had to cut and eat it fast because the cleaning ladies were trying to kick us out to lock up