#the religious trauma & potential horror of these two... ah | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nihilara · 4 months

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🚢 hi

do i ship our characters together?: yes ( it's actually a bit complicated ) | no | not yet but maybe soon

would i like to ship with you?: yes ( always wtf ) | maybe, i'm willing to try | no

would i rather plot first or jump right in and see where it goes?: develop their relationship first | jump right in | something in between ( i like plotting things out, but i generally don't mind just diving into specific plots. and skipping back and forth. )

what now?: let's plot something | send me shippy memes | i'll send you shippy memes | write me a random starter | i'll write you a random starter

anything else i want you to know about me / my character / my shipping habits: kuro is, and will always be a very dark character. even if he's a sap, and loves with every fiber of his being ( platonically or romantically ). no, he really does not love in halves, but his love comes with a lot of baggage and a lot of horror & self destructive behavior. it's complicated, and i really love exploring the positives AND negatives of any ship i have. so--

send me a lil boat and ill talk about a ship with our muses

#𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓? / answered asks #the religious trauma & potential horror of these two... ah #i mean we've discussed them already #and kuro seeing sunday succeed in...#just?#not becoming exactly like him or worse or--#yeah anyway

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bogwithanlforluck-blog · 6 years

Text

I Unfriend You, Floyd

DISCLAIMER: The figurative and/or literal act of “unfriending” any person, group of people, ideological affiliation, etc. involves, at the least, some disappointment. At its worst, “unfriending” can cause a certain amount of trauma, or it can perhaps evoke past trauma. Since this essay is indeed about an “unfriending” experience that reaches the level of a kind of trauma, I am going to approach this from a remove, as if I were talking this out with a therapist. Please excuse, therefore, the potential psychobabble that may pervade the whole process….

Imagine a typical therapist’s office. Sofas, books, knick-knacks. I am in one chair; the doctor in another.

The doctor asks me, “So, I believe you said you were here to talk about someone who terrorized you, and who, to this day, still terrorizes you, if only periodically. Someone named Floyd. Do I have that right?”

“Well, pretty much yes. But it’s not a someone, it’s a group of people. And the whole name is Pink Floyd.”

“Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying. Why ‘Pink’?”

“Good question.” After this response, a thoughtful pause in the conversation occurs, after which the doctor continues:

“Well, aside from the name itself, why do you think you became so terrified of this Pink Floyd?”

“I have been thinking about that, doctor. And I believe it dates back to a church camping trip that my sister and I went on back when I was about 13.”

“Are you, or were you, religious?”

“No, not really. I am not sure how we ended up going on that trip. My sister and I were not campers, and we were not particularly involved in church. We went to a Methodist Church, but we had no idea what ‘Methodist’ really meant; I’m not sure many Methodists do, actually. I think the Methodist Church is one of those nice hybrid protestant churches that is not too preachy but politely tries to instill good moral values in its parishioners. But, that’s kind of beside the point.”

“Okay, go on then. What happened on this trip?”

“The trip was co-ed, and from what I remember, different sets of parents, not ours, volunteered to drive the kids across Tennessee over the border into west North Carolina, to a campground where we would pitch tents, stay overnight, go whitewater rafting the next day, then go home.”

“Did you have fun?”

“On the whole, no. My sister and I have good memories from it in some ways, because we were the absolute worst campers ever and made a mess of the whole outdoors experience. She and I shared a tent; we had to pitch it ourselves — I know, the nerve of that, right? — and that endeavor took more than a few tries. Overnight, we got zero sleep, because the camper next to us, a guy who had a tent to himself, snored louder than I do, and that means louder than a buzz saw or even an air raid. Imagine rhythmic sonic booms. Anyway, my sister — her name’s Laura, by the way — and I kept laughing at the hapless honker next to us, and then we decided just to stay up all night, so that we could be first at the showers and get the hot water.”

“So far, it does not sound like a bad trip at all. You have some good memories from it.”

“Oh, I do. That was all good. And the whitewater rafting wasn’t bad, except for the fact that I was the youngest on the trip and got put in the back of the raft with the guide, while Laura got to ride up front, where all the action was. She was seated next to two hyper-enthusiastic guys who kept trying to make the most of the rapids, so at the front end of the boat, there was a whole lot of ‘Whoa’-ing and ‘Far-out’-ing, while back in the back, I had the loud voice of the guide in my ear on one side of me, and on the other side, I had my ineffective oar. Plus, remember: I was not a river-type person, so I took offense to my sour-river-water-smelling life jacket and my muddy river-water shoes. I don’t want to sound like a prima-donna, but river life and camping are just not my thing.”

“But so far, Floyd, or Pink Floyd — you had not met him yet.”

“Oh, no, and Pink Floyd, it’s not a ‘him’; it’s a rock group.”

“Oh, a rock group.” [Notice that I have chosen a doctor who has never heard of Pink Floyd. Artistic license!]

“The Pink Floyd encounter came later, when we were on our way home. I am not sure how the rides home got put together, but after our muddy-water day on the river, we went home, once again in cars driven by parents. One of our fellow campers was a schoolmate of mine; his name was Jason. Thinking back, I daresay his name is quite apt in this situation, as the name ‘Jason’ in this day and age symbolizes the ultimate horror figure. ‘Jason’ is the name of the anti-hero in all the Friday the 13th movies.”

“So Jason brought to mind the horror films?”

“Not then — just now, looking back, I note that Jason’s name is rather ironic, in the context of things. So, anyway, I think we ended up riding home with Jason and his parents, because Jason was a schoolmate of mine, and for that reason — though he and I were not friends at school — we rode with his family. We had an outside-church connection.”

“So, you rode all the way from western North Carolina to Nashville with this same family? You and your sister?”

“Yes. And as we were guests of the drivers, Laura and I — maybe practicing our good Methodist manners — did not make any special requests on where to sit or anything like that. So, naturally, I sat in the middle of the back seat, between Jason and Laura, I think. Jason’s mother was riding in the front passenger seat, and she said a few polite words to us, but from there, things got eerily quiet.”

“How so?”

“Well, this, I think, is where the insidious workings of the Pink Floyd trauma began. Jason, for his part, was sullen. I don’t know why. Maybe he did not like muddy river water and stinky life jackets, either. He was not in our boat, so maybe he had to ride in the back of his. Whatever the case, he was in a pouty mood. He insisted that his parents play his favorite cassette tape, which just happened to consist of nothing but Pink Floyd music.”

“Was Jason mean to you?”

“No, not at all. He was just completely grim and therefore speechless. I don’t remember a single word he said on that ride home. Maybe he was so into his music that he did not want to talk over it. Laura and I, meanwhile, did not want to interrupt his — reverie, either, so we kept quiet.

“And therefore, by the tacitly enforced quiet in the car, Pink Floyd came drifting through the atmosphere, enveloping us all in a Floyd-fug. Meanwhile, imagine where I am and the environment in which we were driving. We had reached that no-man’s land between east Tennessee and west North Carolina that is just a bendy-road with gargantuan trees all eaten alive by kudzu. The trees on either side of the narrow, two-lane road were very tall and branched over towards one another on either side, and in their kudzu-caped crisis, they seemed to be gesturing over to each other for help, growing ever taller to escape the body-snatcher enveloping them. And I, sitting in the middle of the back seat, was in my own no-man’s land, having to brace myself from swaying into Jason or Laura as we turned around the bends in the road.”

“Hm. That does sound uncomfortable.”

“You got it in a word, doctor. ‘Uncomfortable.’ Because amid this dreary landscape, along with the vacuum of speech, came the quite DIS-quieting sound of Pink Floyd. And the song I remember most clearly from this hellish, church-camping-trip ride home, was Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb.’ Right. ‘Comfortably Numb’ my ass! Oh, pardon my swearing.”

“That’s okay; you have to say what you need to say.”

“Yes, well, thank you. My ass may have been literally numb, but it was not comfortable. And Pink Floyd was not helping. You see, that group— their songs — their songs sound like they’re coming from the grave. They have this super-mellow-tinged-with-despair sound that attacks you just like that kudzu was attacking the trees. Over and over, I was hearing this extended, ‘I—I——I have become…comfortably numb.’ The more I heard it, the more anxious I became. I was uncomfortably antsy. For miles and miles it seems, we rode with the kudzu and Pink Floyd, to the point where I felt like I might never make it out alive. Indeed, I felt like I might go right into the grave from which those songs emanated”

“Maybe those songs were triggering an uncomfortable memory for you, and you started to panic.”

“No, it was the reverse. Those songs were the beginning of an uncomfortable reality for me — that Pink Floyd exists, and that the group has FANS. I started to panic at that realization.”

“Perhaps.”

“For definite. And ever since then, I have never liked their music. A long time later, for about two years, I worked in a record store, and I tried to keep an open mind about all music while working there. I saw many Pink Floyd fans come and go. I stocked the band’s albums. I give the band credit for coming up with some of the most iconic album art in the history of rock. And I listened to some of their songs, again, but even with my attempts to keep an open mind, their music gives me the creeps, like creeping kudzu. Over time, I have grown more and more leery of Pink Floyd music. If I happen to hear the beginnings of some of their famous hits — and they had a couple of gimmicky beginnings to a few songs that are now instantly recognizable — I feel dread. Like the Grim Reaper is nearby and bad things are about to unfurl. I just think,” and here, I sit up straighter, “ — I believe it’s time to unfriend them. A kind of renunciation of their power.”

“You can certainly do that; I like the idea. And I will be here for support, just in case some of the fear returns, in whatever measure.”

And therefore, in theory, and in writing, I am officially unfriending Pink Floyd. Many apologies to Pink Floyd fans if I have caused offense. Recently, I saw a poll ranking the best Rock & Roll bands of all time, and Pink Floyd was ranked 4th. What wonderful news for fans. However, I will, in my best Methodist-mannered fashion, politely disagree with that ranking.

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