Skill: Shows off the blacksmiths massive horse cock. In a time before modern machinery some crazy Germans and Swiss hammered beyond natural human limit. They probably did it as a meme then realised it was actually useful as a weapon. Sharpening a wavy blade would have been a nightmare.
Functional: Good for duelling sword vs sword. A traditional sword allows you to slide off an enemies blade if your swords clash, because the blade is straight. The waves in a flamberg blade creates vibrations which hurts the opponents hands, that doesn’t sound like much but it gives you an advantage. Very useful for parrying since the enemies sword will strike, then the blade gets stuck on your wavy blade or they pull away from the impact shock. Either way you will have an opening to attack. Also the waves cut much deeper similar to a serrated knife. If you got cut once by this blade, you would not be able to stitch your wound shut, you are pretty much sliced bread.
Aesthetic: Someone challenges you to a duel, while they unsheathe their boring longsword, you unwrap your wiggly sword. They immediately apologize and run because you are rich enough to afford a wiggly sword and probably have multiple wenches giving you ankle parchments.
my friend called me on the phone from the library to tell me he’d been chased by a mountain lion and he thought he might have vomited up blood and I was in the middle of scrubbing my car and having a heat stroke god my life keeps getting fucking weirder
mind you this is my friend who is the total chronic disaster who got into that knife fight in the middle school parking lot so I’m used to giving him shitty advice but this summer since I don’t talk on the phone he texts me every other day with some new terrible strange twist that has happened in his life like “my girlfriend almost got kidnapped” “there are three centipedes in my bed!” “I almost got mugged again” like normally I would just go help him but I’m 4 hours away now and it’s like he forgets GXHRVGSHFV
your friend is a protagonist
this I’m aware of I’m his sidekick and the epitome of the nerd best friend archetype but still it is my civic duty to complain
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
Bradbury wrote a lot of weird shit. But, “The Book of Sand” and"The Library of Babel" by Luis Borges.
The ones who walk away from omelas
“The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov
2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut
A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift. The guy who wrote Gilligan’s Island wrote this, too, and while it freaked me the hell out the first go thru, it made me realise that all of Swift’s works are satire.
this post has made my notes hell (30k and counting, kill me) but i HAVE to respond to this one because
jonathan swift wrote satirical 1726 novel gulliver’s travels
jonathan swift did not write popular 1960s sitcom gilligan’s island
All summer in a day…. also ray bradbury
OMG yes, all the short stories I can recall having read in high school and college have made it onto this list (The Lottery, A Rose for Emily, All Summer in a Day, Harrison Bergeron, The Yellow Wallpaper).
I just also want to recommend “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler. We read this in our Literature of Science Fiction course in college and I feel like it’s underrated and belongs on this list.
nobody likes the “bad boys” who insult and degrade their partners while wearing pastel polos with popped collars, people like REAL bad boys who wear leather jackets and take a lot of care in how they shape their pompadour and carry around stiletto switchblades and care about their communities and ride a motorcycle and rebel against the government and says stuff like “NOBODY insults my gal” and gets in fistfights with dudes who catcall their girlfriends. THOSE bad boys are the guys everyone wants.
Reincarnation is a known, common, and expected result of death. You are a bounty hunter that specializes in tracking down people who have committed suicide to escape debts or a jail sentence.
“It’s a girl!” the doctor exclaimed.
“It’s a fucking tax dodger is what is it!” Blaize ‘The Flame’ Hogan burst into the infirmary, cocking his shotgun.
this man did not follow my Science Rules™️. I am disappointed.
He’s an electrical engineer and makes videos like these to show you exactly what not to do when handling equipment.
I kinda figured it was either a “don’t be this dumbass” video or the man was a holo skull union member.
That’s ElectroBoom
He’s stated in videos about safety that he often makes less dangerous mistakes on purpose or stages more dangerous looking screw-ups for rule-of-funny and to demonstrate common mistakes.
fair enough, good on him.
His stage persona being perpetually cursed by Murphy’s Law is sort of his trademark and how he keeps his videos from being just boring electrical engineering lessens.
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