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!

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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?

[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]

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.

[hailthewarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes, we would. And, why do I think your icon is from a movie? But, for the life of me I can't remember what it is...

[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]

It's from Red Dwarf, actually. As is this.

[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]

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.

[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.

[greyladybast.livejournal.com]

That's the one. *sigh* Ah, nostalgia.....

[greyladybast.livejournal.com]

That's my Lister, that is, right there, expressing a firm and relevant opinion on pretty much everything.

*ponders* Y'know, it says horrible things about my taste in men that I lust after Lister and Rimmer.

.....and I wonder why I can't find Twu Wuv.....

Bast

[greyladybast.livejournal.com]

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.

Which nicely sums up my main bitch with the so-called "Bible literalists" as they ignore vast swaths of the thing that tell them, basically, to play nice and not be assholes to everyone else in the world, in favor of the fire-and-brimstone bits.

Yet even the fire-and-brimstone bits are a privilege reserved exclusively for God alone, and completely out of the purview of Men....

*headdesk* Honestly, what part of "Judge not, lest ye be judged" is that difficult to comprehend?

she says not five seconds after being judgemental...

But I guess the big difference between me and Them is that I'm aware of my own sin and/or hypocricy, and at least try (yet fail regularly) not to indulge in it.

There was more to all this, but my train of thought just derailed, so I'll give it up for now.

Bast

[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.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

You're even worse than me. I tend to lust mainly after Rimmer.

Though Lister is nice.

God, someone stop me.

[siraj.livejournal.com]

Mmm... swiss cheese... Swiss isn't bad, but give me a good cheddar any day...

[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!

[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.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* Honestly, what part of "Judge not, lest ye be judged" is that difficult to comprehend?

I guess they blinked and missed it. And blinked again on rereading and yet again missed it. It's amazing what you don't see when you don't want to.

We all sometimes do things we shouldn't, but I think some of the key is not justifying it. If you start justifying bad behaviour on a regular basis, it becomes all the more easy to do.

Says she who is naughty on a regular basis. Um, yeah.