Missing Eowyn and Faramir and the shadows in the mind and their whispers of hatred

[misscam]

Why didn't you include this scene, PJ? Whyyyyy?! My, I really am on a Wenham/Faramir droolage of late. Bad me.

So in between lusting and conversations on evil and this lovely bill suggestion for Virginia, I've been reading this dossier online about Fred Phelps, who some of you may recall from previous entries. (BTW, Mr. Phelps, this icon is all in honour of you.) It's quite interesting, I must say. An Expose on Fred Phelps. After my initial "Grrr!" reaction, the man has started interest me in much the same way neo-Nazis do. I want to understand him. I want to know just when hatred takes over and the *shadow in your mind starts ruling.

* I call the part of my mind that is what you might say is evil the shadow in my mind. You know it. It's the part that might delight in others' misfortuntes, be unpleasant or desire hurt for others. It's greedy and dark and speaks against your conscience. It whispers of hatred and sometimes, people listen.

I sometimes wonder if the not-so-good Mr. Phelps think the shadow in his mind is the voice of God, given the force of his hatred. He's made the God he believe in into him, made God want the same things. This, it occurs to me, have happened quite a few times in the history of this world. Some listen to the whispers of the not-as-good parts of us and think it come from some outer source. Perhaps that gives it a justification so it can be indulged, I don't know. It's food for thought, anyway.

I don't know why evil fascinates me so. Maybe I see it in myself. I know I could do so much that would be evil if I let go and used the shadow in my mind for more than cackling evilly when playing computer games and blowing up little computer people. I could do terrible things. Evil could wear my face. But perhaps if I understand it well enough, it will have no hold over me. Perhaps I can chain it, as Vimes does with his beast in Night Watch (by the ever-wonderful Terry Pratchett). Perhaps we can all learn to chain our worst urges. Not by denying they are there, but seeing them for what they are. Just a shadow, not the substance.

And then I let my little shadow have fun sniggering at badfic while the better me was wondering what to get my father for my upcoming birthday.

To finish on a more cheerful note, a meme I saw at norwegianne's.

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

Comments

[forceofhobbit.livejournal.com]

Your comments on evil raise a few points--what causes a person to turn completely evil, and how evil--well, anyone--could be if they "let go". It's definitely something to ponder. Thanks for making me think today!

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:) It's always nice to make people think a bit.

[greyladybast.livejournal.com]

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

I first met you, like probably half if not more of your fans, via OFUM. Specifically, during the first OFUM, when you offered to include readers if they asked. I asked. Then you IM'd me, wanting a rhyme for "Bast." I dug out my handy-dandy rhyming dictionary, and ultimately you picked the word "aghast" as the one you needed.

And that's how I met you.

Bast

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah. I remember.

She took a seat next to Grey Lady Bast
Who looked so terribly aghast
The ode had made her ears bleed
But Bombadil had paid no heed
He spoke and spoke and said some more
Shaking everyone to the core
How bad could poetry possibly be?
For this was enough to make you flee

[hailthewarrior.livejournal.com]

Well, how I met you. LJ via PPC via OFUM I believe.

On the Mr. Phelps, I am a Christian, and, if he really believes God is saying that he is a heretic. I'll just leave it at that.

HtW

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Seeems to be a common route of how people have met me.

If God truly was what Phelps believed, I think we'd all be better off not believing, eh?

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

I think I did a search on ff.net years ago, on the subject of Norway in stories, or something like that, and one of yours came up.

After I got an LJ, I found the same story again, and noticed that you had LJ as well.

I think that was the basic reasoning behind it all... things get a little fuzzy after a while.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have written a tale or two where Norway is the setting just to be able to write something I knew for once. Writing stories set in the US or Australia required quite some research at times.

[sinneahtes.livejournal.com]

I still wish that scenes and stuff that never made it to the LOTR movies or to the Extended Editions had at least been put as extra goodies in the appendices -- or something! I know at least FOTR had storyboard animations of scenes that got cut out that I would have loved to see, but hey, who wouldn't rather see them acted out instead of just drawn? :P

Religious nuts fascinate me in a nauseating sort of way -- I've read the Bible myself (or at least, one Protestant edition of it), and what I gathered from the New Testament always seems so completely different from what these sorts of people gather from it. They see Jesus as angry and hating homosexuals, I (who am no longer Christian, but still sort of admire Jesus anyway) see him as being loving and more liberal than conservative (though a lot of stuff God Himself said sounded pretty nasty) -- I guess a lot of people want to see God in their own images, or something.

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

I read OFUM (surprise, surprise ;)) and then, being the snoop who loves reading journals that I am, couldn't resist following the link to your LJ. I liked reading that better, not because OFUM wasn't good, but because you had interesting things to say and pushed me (without your ever knowing I was there) to think of things in ways I hadn't thought of before, and just shortly before I got my own LJ and while I was trying to think of ways to spend spring vacation, decided to comment in here and ask about Norway. Or something.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know. *wails* PJ is just cruel and mean to us.

What you read and get out of a book sometimes depends so much of what you brought into reading it in the first place, I think. Humans always want to reaffirm their theories, not find arguments against them. So we see what we want to see and read what we want to read.

:) I'm really glad I made you think a bit. It's the greatest compliment anyone can offer me.

[silvery-lass.livejournal.com]

I came across your OFUM story on FF.net in early 2003 (we even discussed a thing, but I doubt you remember) but it wasn't until this year when I got a LJ that I friended you.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*thinks* No, I have forgotten what we discussed. In my defence, I get asked a lot of stuff concerning OFUM and I have a mind like Swiss cheese.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

I found OFUM thanks to selenak, and that introduced me to you. The rest is history.

I've seen that Fred Phelps expose myself and had the same reaction--revulsion with a certain amount of fascination. I mean, the man's batshit insane, on one hand, but on the other, he's very calculating. How can those things coexist? I don't know, and I don't want to.

Yay on the Eowyn/Faramir love! I do wish we could've seen their wedding. My guess is that it would've been seen had PJ gone for his original idea, which was doing a Frodo-narrated overview of what happened to the principal characters after the destruction of the Ring and Aragorn's coronation. I can see why he cut it from an already-long denoument, but I wish he'd at least left it as one of the extras on the EE.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

See, I'm horribly curious and I actually want to know. Someone help me.

Yeah, it think the wedding of Aragorn and Arwen also originally was meant to be in a sort of narrated epilogue. But with all the Arwen/Aragorn snogging, he could have at least given us one Faramir/Eowyn kiss.

Yes, I am bitter.

[undeadgoat.livejournal.com]

Lemme see . . . I read OFUM over a year ago, from lookig at hS's favorite stores page at ff.n, I think. And then from there I wandered into your personal site, found the PPC stories, stumbled my way onto the board, actually met you-ish, then when I got my lj a little less than a year ago, I found yours through the board somehow or other and thus -- I friended you!

[misscam.livejournal.com]

And then we had a party!

It's interesting how many people have met me through OFUM, really. Makes me wonder what I'd be at if I'd never written it.

[siraj.livejournal.com]

If Evil is Evil and Evil is Good, then what's Good?

*is stuck in a paradox box*

[siraj.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and I started off by reading OFUM and discovered you had an LJ, same as a lot of folks here.

[shadowednavi.livejournal.com]

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

^^; You're on my friends list, I see your journal and I never reply... I found your journal through sasja_sokolov ^^; I hope to be able to become better friends than just "post once in awhile"

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah, trhough my drabbles, wasn't it? (Look, my mind is not totally gone! Whee!)

It can be kind of tricky getting to know people on the Net really well unless one really, really makes an effort.

And of course, I'm lazy. Tsk on me.

[limegreen-sloth.livejournal.com]

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

I saw reference to OFUM in the original PPC, read OFUM, claimed a mini and proceeded to add and lurk in your lj from there. I came for the OFUM and stayed for the ponderings of posts like these.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:)

Come for the snark, stay for the cheese.

[chem-nerd.livejournal.com]

I know I could do so much that would be evil if I let go and used the shadow in my mind for more than cackling evilly when playing computer games and blowing up little computer people. I could do terrible things. Evil could wear my face.

Kinda reminds me of the One Ring. Phelps, greedy for virtue and power over others' thoughts, has taken the ring, and tried to turn it to good. But the ring can do no good, and has corrupted Phelps into an evil too horrible to be imagined. *facepalm* I am such a Rings-geek. But, seriously, something must have happened--you just can't be that evil naturally...can you?

[siraj.livejournal.com]

Morgoth and Sauron would be proud... until Phelps started mouthing off.

[millikov.livejournal.com]

Oh, well. OFUM, of course! And then you IM'ed (or MSn'ed, rather) me with a 'boo' and soon after we were bitching about the PAP and the Shrub and such. Good times.

[millikov.livejournal.com]

I forgot the part where I added you to my MSN list first. Indeed.

[losseniaiel.livejournal.com]

*weeps for the missing Eowyn/Faramir goodness*

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*adores pretty icon*

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Wow, this link about the activities of Mr. Phelps is scary. (There's really no other word for it.) But your theory about Phelps and the voice of God reminds me of the old quibble: "When you speak to God, it's called prayer. When God speaks to you, it's called schizophrenia." Might explain a lot in his case.

Why didn't you include this scene, PJ? Whyyyyy?! My, I really am on a Wenham/Faramir droolage of late. Bad me.

I would have liked to see that, too... I mean the only love story that was actually in the book itself was cut out, and another one with smooching horses suddenly popped up. I'm still mad at PJ because the Houses of Healing were so short, but they had obviously enough time for stupid drinking games. *grr*

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first meeting you.

Well, I haven't been around for long, but I've been lurking at your LJ for some time. I had discovered OFUM at HASA, read it, nearly died laughing, then found out one day that you got a homepage, a journal and interesting things to say. And two weeks ago or so, one remark of yours made me laugh so hard that I commented on it. So, here I am. :)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

In the past, voices in your head might get you eventual sainthood. Nowadays it earns you a nice rubber room, it seems. Times change. Phelps was probably born some centuries too late. He would have done well in teh Spanish Inquisition.

The drinking game could happily have been lost, yes. "Oh, let's see Gimli be the Comic!Relief! *again*! Surely the audience never tires of that! So lets lose the delicious Canon snogging, it's just not as godo as Dwarven burping and passing out."

Sigh.

[shandydann]

Its not just Vimes that chains his beast. Granny Weatherwax knows that she walks a fine line between the darkness and the light. She has her sister as an example. Sometimes evil people dont realise they are evil (or they stopped listening to their concience). They think that they are doing good, its hard to say.

I must admit I used to like doing fireworks displays with the lemmings computer games.


I haven't met you, but I have been a longtime fan of OFUM.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's true. I guess those who worry about going evil is perhaps those who might avoid it. When you stop worrying, perhaps that is when you should really watch your own actions.

Heh, I find it amusing to kill worms in Worms 3D. Bite the dust, boneless twerp.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

In response to the meme.. the reason I friended you is actually mildly amusing story I don't believe you know. I, as with most people, was still a bit intimidated by your OFUM-spawned aura of evil. Also, I noted the large amount of people on your friends list. Surely, I said to myself, Miss Cam would never friend me.

And so while talking to Hawkelf, somehow the conversation became about just that.. how I thought you would surely never friend me back if I friended you. Hawky, however, maintained that if any PPCer friended you, you would friend them back. I was convinced you would not, so I friended you to see if you would (and to prove Hawky wrong).

Let's just say it's a good thing we didn't bet on it. ^^;

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. I do get that reaction a lot. OFUM seems to have done wonders for my ability to be feared.

I actually friend anyone who friend me, regardless of whether or not they're with the PPC. Unless I have some very specific reason not to friend, that is. I guess I'm just very friendly ;)