vr-trakowski:

lapisbuchananlazuli:

periegesisvoid:

wuqs:

asterlark:

i-see-your-light:

demo-ness:

lesbianshepard:

harkerling:

txwatson:

lieutenantriza:

insanitysbloomings:

siderealsandman:

bravinto:

idlewildly:

eccentwrit:

asexualzoro:

cleverest-url:

rebel-against-reality:

w3rewolf-th3rewolf:

schrodingers-rufus:

fuchsiamae:

silverilly:

repulsion-gel:

fuchsiamae:

an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks

• the scarlet ibis
• marigolds
• the diamond necklace
• the monkey’s paw
• the open boat
• the lady and the tiger
• the minister’s black veil
• an occurrence at owl creek bridge
• a rose for emily
• (I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)
• the cask of amontillado
• the yellow wallpaper
• the most dangerous game
• a good man is hard to find

some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15

add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed

The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma’am

the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”

wHat did I just put my eyes on

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Not quite a short story, but read in class: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” from The Twilight Zone

Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers

“Where are you going and where have you been” by Joyce carol oates

“The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury

the lottery by shirley jackson

i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned

and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf

Ett halvt ark papper.
I cried so much.

Ночь у мазара, А. Шалимов

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury 

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme

We read lots of good disturbing shit in hs or in the writing groups I joined in hs but somehow the top of the heap for shit that haunted me’s still indisputably Ethan Canin’s “The Palace Thief”. It’s not horror as such but it freaked me the fuck out. 

There was another O. Henry short story we read that was also really alarming but I had to google a major spoiler (which is also a warning) to recall the name – “The Furnished Room”.  

there will come soft rains by bradbury was very unsettling for middle school me

I had no idea so many were all written by Ray Bradbury, why did he do this to us

“Emergency” by Dennis Johnson – not entirely disturbing but really weird and there’s one Bad Part

“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver – again not all that bad but sad and kind of creepy 

i had to read a collapse of horses by brian evenson for a writing class last year and it’s. very fucking weird

“the birds” by du maurier

Bradbury wrote a lot of weird shit. But, “The Book of Sand” and"The Library of Babel" by Luis Borges.

“It’s a Good Life” – Jerome Bixby
“The Little Black Bag” – Cyril M. Cornbluth
“The Cold Equations” – Tom Godwin
“The Nine Billion Names of God” – Arthur C. Clarke
“Mars is Heaven!” – Ray Bradbury
“Born of Man and Woman” – Richard Matheson
“That Only A Mother” – Judith Maril
“The Country of the Kind” – Damon Knight
“Mimsy Were The Borogroves” – Lewis Padgett
“Lamb to the Slaughter” – Roald Dahl
“We Can Get Them For You Wholesale” – Neil Gaiman
“BLIT” and “Different Kinds of Darkness” – David Langford (set in the same universe) (there are a couple of other “basilisk” stories and they’re worth checking out)
“The Secret Number” – Igor Teper

“Hush” by Zenna Henderson

“The Cicerones,” by Robert Aickman. “The Last Bouquet,” Marjorie Bowen (also Bowen’s “The Sign Painter and the Crystal Fishes” isn’t disturbing, exactly, it’s just really weird). “The Riddle,” by Walter de la Mare. “Sandkings,” George R. R. Martin. “Snake,” Nalo Hopkinson.

gokuma:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

xenosaurus:

story concept of the day: a “medical mystery of the week” serial set in a world with monsters and superpowers and mutants and aliens

It would be like. One part comedy, one part drama, two parts world-building. The hospital has an aquatic wing for mermaids and sea monsters. How do you treat someone who has telepathic influenza? We’ll figure it out, I guess!

Some storyline concepts:

—a woman from a telepathic race based on anglerfish shows up in the ER in a panic because her mate, who is tiny and permanently attached to her body, has stopped communicating through their telepathic link

—the air-breathing doctors have to take over the aquatic ward after a mysterious illness spreads through the water-breathing staff

—an ambulance brings in an unconscious alien from a species totally outside of medical literature, the staff scramble to save their life while flying blind

—the first outbreak of lycanthropy in 50 years occurs following protests against the vaccine, the hospital is quarantined while the on-staff pharmacists try to control the situation

If I write this, I’d want it to be like. Scrubs meets WTNV.

Character concept: a demon who works in the ER because their ability to “steal” souls means they can bring back patients who are medically dead but still repairable if you can just get them breathing again.

He has some insanely generic sounding name like Doctor Fred and has that “snake tongue, fangs, ram horns, red skin, yellow eyes, long tail, black bat wings” thing going on

He’s like 35 and the object of unrepentant longing from most of the interns and junior staff. He’s kind and patient and great with kids and has the cutest hiccupy laugh and is absolutely the guy you want overseeing your training because he never yells. Everyone wants to marry Doctor Fred.

It’s a running joke that he’s probably a literal Incubus but there’s no aura or magic at play, he’s just got a perfect personality.

I think I’m naming this story “doctors and demons” for now

Another character is just. Nessie. The Loch Ness monster is here. She works at the front desk for the aquatic ward and pokes her head out of the water to pass notes and files to the other doctors.

One of the aquatic doctors is Doctor Lagoon, who is the creature from the black lagoon. He’s very intimidating but can be immediately be calmed down by bringing up his human wife or their daughter. There’s a picture of him holding his wife bridal style on his desk.

The actual protagonist is a human woman who considers herself totally normal but actually has SOME sort of powerful telekinesis that she constantly explains away as coincidence.

There’s a character named Cadaver or Caddie who is a living corpse that constantly regenerates. She’s vital to the hospital for organ transplants but an absolute nightmare for the staff because she does things like host speed dating for zombies in the morgue and eat everyone lunch out of the staff room fridge.

Also I think the protagonist’s name is Jane Doe or Doctor Doe, as a joke on her being average but… not at all.

I think the trio of main characters are Doctor Fred (emergency), Doctor Doe (in-patient) and an alien surgeon named Doctor Hive, who is close to an insectoid Cthulhu. A running joke is her ability to keep track of her hundreds of children but not the names of any of their fathers or her coworkers except her very favorites.

I LOVE URBAN FANTASY

(James White’s Hospital Station stories were sort of the SF version of this.)

ao3tagoftheday:

Well, I’ve literally never written a fic (I have a lot of them in my head but I’ve never had the nerve to write them down), so I don’t really have a sense of what comments are most motivating to authors. Anyone who does write fic want to weigh in?

I know I keep hoping for questions about the characters’
other adventures, since that will motivate me to write about them. Failing that,
comments that indicate someone spotted my weirder in-jokes are always welcome.