#slightlyspooky originalpost

[slightlyspooky]

Portrait of Yuri Lowenthal's Man from the Railroad.

Sketch was a tracing of THE definitive Sasuke Portrait. All else done in pen by myself.

[slightlyspooky]

The impact of Le Samouraï (1967) can be traced to the present day and this post by Tumblr user @cum-rade

In this essay I will outline the series of events leading the creation of the above post and the lasting effects of Le Samouraï on modern culture.

Timeline

November 1955 Vietnam War begins

1967(?) Le Samouraï begins production directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

June 1967 A time traveler* burns down the studio attempting to end production

October 1967 Release in the France

1972 dubbed release in the USA titled as The Godson to capitalize from The Godfather's Success

1972 Arthur Bremer's relationship ends, quits his job, plans to assassinate Richard Nixon or George Wallace, and ultimately shoots George Wallace while posing as a supporter and living out of his car

April 1975 Vietnam War ends

1975 Paul Schrader writes the script for Taxi Driver, inspired by assassination attempts and Le Samouraï while living out of his car

Summer 1975 Taxi Driver has begun filming

September 1975 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme of the Manson Cult attempts to assassinate President Gerald Ford

February 1976 Taxis Driver is released staring Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, & (child) Jodie Foster and directed by Martin Scorsese

Break for Taxi Driver Rundown (spoilers)

Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle a lonely, mentally ill, white, male Vietnam War vet who drives a taxi

Travis thinks the world is a dirty horrible place that somebody should clean up

Travis says the iconic line "We live in a society"*

Travis is infatuated with Betsy (played by Cybill Shepherd)

Travis goes on a few dates with Betsy

Betsy breaks up with Travis because he brings her to a pornographic theater

Travis deletes Facebook, hits the gym, and lawyers guns up

Travis attempts to assassinate a political candidate while posing as a supporter

Travis gets away cleanly

Travis kills a bunch of pimps to save a sex trafficking victim named Iris (played by Jodie Foster)

Travis puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger

Travis is celebrated as a hero

Timeline Continued

John Hinckley Jr. watches Taxi Driver (1976) at least 15 times

Hinckley becomes infatuated with 14 year old Jodie Foster

1980 Hinckley moves to Connecticut to stalk Jodie Foster

Hinckley emulates The Joker Travis Bickle IRL

October 1980 Hinckley is arrested for illegal possession of a firearm while stalking President Jimmy Carter

Hinckley chooses to support Ronald Reagan

1980 American Gigolo, directed by Paul Schrader is released as the second installment of Schrader's list of movies based on Taxi Driver

January 1981 Reagan becomes president of the USA

March 1981 Hinckley shoots Reagan and several others

1992 Light Sleeper, directed by Paul Schrader is released as the third installment of Schrader's list of movies based on Taxi Driver

1997 Le Samouraï re-release in the USA

2007 The Walker, directed by Paul Schrader is released as the final installment of Schrader's list of movies based on Taxi Driver

2011 Drive inspired by Le Samouraï staring Ryan Gosling is released

That greentext where Anon pretends to be Ryan Gosling's character in Drive takes place

2016 Hinckley is released from psychiatric care

2019 Joker, (which is the same movie as Taxi Driver) is released staring Robert De Niro who's brains are blown out on screen

Joker meme culture captivates lonely males

2020 a ruling allows Hinckley to showcase his artistic work under his own name

2022 all restrictions on Hinckley are lifted

2023 Tumblr user posts about Hinckley's artwork

Le Samouraï is the basis of the Loner Male movie genre and lead to Ronald Reagan being shot. You can continue the legacy of Le Samouraï by missing the point of of the genre. Do toxic masculinity, it's very cool* and you can be just like Arthur Bremer, Travis Bickle, John Hinckley Jr., and Mr. The Joker.

*false

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When I was a young man I went backpacking to settle my mind in the forest. I was days into my trip and it had rained the night before. A small stream poured from a cliff-side cave and I saw something glittering in the water. A small gold coin, but not from any mint nor culture I recognized.

One coin? Were there more? I searched through the silt and found another. There must be more in the cave! I was vindicated as I found a third at the cave mouth.

Now that I was so close the cave mouth struck me as unsettling. It was like a child's drawing of a cave. It looked natural from the trail, but on closer inspection it was clearly not carved through natural processes. The surfaces were a uniform roughness, not weathered the way they should be.

This was not a place to explore alone.

Days later I returned home from my trip, having sated my original goal.

I showed my family the coins I had found. My little niblings asked if the coins were real, to which I responded that they were. My confidence in this answer was surprising to me, but I knew it to be true. My mother was overjoyed. The coins would afford us some much needed minor upgrades to our home.

My sibling and I planned a trip to explore the cave for its riches.

The village merchant was also quite pleased. He helped up broker the goods and services my mother required. He was too old to make the journey to the cave himself, but offered us advice from his elders and from his time as an adventurous young man. I now wish that he did not, that he turned away our currency of unknown mint. That instead he warned us of the things he could not know.

The first two excursions into the cave were both lucrative and uneventful. We were careful. We brought out wealth beyond what our village had ever seen. And can you call us greedy if we were so generous with the treasure?

The third excursion was ill fated. It rained the night before we entered the cave. But we didn't wait for the cave to dry. That was my decision. We were practiced. We knew the cave well enough by now.

My sibling slipped and hit their head on a rock. Died instantly. They did not pass into The Wood and so were interred in the victim's graveyard. My best friend, who I would never know again.

I never returned to the cave and never gave its location, but eventually others found it. They were also rewarded with wealth at first. Then tragic death.

That cave still sits open. I see it in my dreams, sparkling, pulsing. It promises me treasure. But I see it for what it is. A breaker of hearts and a parasite of the spirit. A dungeon.

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In my as-of-yet unnamed fantasy setting the place where people live is a flat plane, not an oblate spheroid. There are no edges to fall off, you could sail across this place mostly as if it were a planet following the laws of our universe, and the horizon is usually the same distance away as on earth. But it's flat and finite. I will not be justifying the physics of this to myself or anyone else.

Will this ever affect the narratives told in this setting? Maybe not, but I like the idea of it.

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Death

When people die non-violent deaths they're drawn to the Wood of the Dead.

~

My grandmother's labored breathing punctuated her stories. Stories I'd heard a hundred times in my childhood. I fell asleep to the origin of She Who Watches.

In the morning the house was silent, and in the silence I made our breakfast. She didn't eat a bite, didn't say a word. The wheezing was gone.

"It's time for me to go"

I secured the shutters to the windows, packed a bag, and let the neighbor know.

As the miles past and the days went on my grandmother's now sparse words became more infrequent. Another time she would have stopped to tell me about the landmarks we went by, now she walked wordlessly onward. I could hardly convince her to stop for me to rest.

When we arrived I was haggard, unkempt, and caked in mud. My grandmother looked exactly as she had the night she died. I hadn't slept through a night in three days. For the past three mornings we began our journey before dawn.

At the entrance to the valley of the Wood of the Dead I saw other groups trickling in with us. The watchman cried out to each of us.

"When the sun sets do not let the shadow of the mountain pass over you, or you too will be counted amongst the dead"

I approached the edge of the wood with my grandmother and for the first time since the beginning of our journey she hugged me.

"I'm so proud of who you've grown to be"

She stepped through the veil and disappeared into the trees.

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Bad idea:

A hammer that contains a subcritical nuclear mass. The mass briefly goes critical via some mechanism when the hammer strikes something.

You and your victim both die of accute radiation sickness a few days later.

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In any given crowd, there are likely strangers. When casually observed a stranger looks like an unremarkable person. When observing a stranger more closely you'll realize you can't recall any details about them. Did they have blue eyes or brown? Were they called Gary or John? It doesn't particularly matter because they'll dissapear from existence soon enough.

In a busy market you'll sometimes find a stall run by a stranger. Normally if you purchased something from these stalls it would be entirely unremarkable. The world's most average tomato perhaps. But if you pay very close attention you can find goods that don't exist. Like a bundle of herbs that could mistaken for sage and that you'll never find again. A careful chef could make a unique soup du jour every day for a lifetime.

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Why is everything in my life so Sounds Fake, But Okay right now?

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The Dark Aspen Grove

When time began, there were trees of every age. They grew and died as they should with the rhythm of the world. With a few exceptions.

There was an aspen who's stems always grew and never fell. It spread over the hillside and beyond. Eventually, the oldest stems rivaled the redwoods, and beneath them was a perpetual night.

In the deep parts of The Grove, life is abundant in forms not seen elsewhere. Orchids and white leaved plants that have never seen the sun. Glowing beetles. Blind lizards.

The rustling leaves speak to anyone who will listen. The things they ask for are beyond understanding. But followers of The Grove are granted ancient wisdom, impossible knowledge, and uncanny blessings. Followers who betray The Grove often find that their blessings betray them in kind.

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Chalchiel Bronze I

During the event that brought Riften its name, a furnace demon later called Chalchiel came through the breach. It was a great lumbering thing that walked on the knuckles of its four arms. It was discovered that molten metal flowed through Chalchiel's veins, and a bounty to capture it alive was issued.

Just over two dozen slayers valiently sacrificed themselves for this cause. Nobody who lost their home during Chalchiel's extended rampage filed grievances (out of respect for the fallen heroes).

It was pinned to an enormous four armed crucifix and transported to a disused prison that would become Loche Casting. Each day, the demon was lanced, and its molten blood was cast into a variety of products, including tools and weapons. Each product was marked with the logo of the company.

Chalchiel bronze has a number of unique properties. It tarnishes to black instead of green. It has incredible strength and never needs to be sharpened. It maintains structure at white hot heat.

This special metal is highly treasured. People who use chalchiel bronze items keep obsessive track of the item's location. If a person loses access to the item, they often become irritable, shaky, and nauseous. That's dedication!

People have also claimed that weapons made from chalchiel bronze caused them to become violent. There's no evidence for this, and all reasonable tribunals admonish defendants for making this ridiculous claim.

Unfortunately, it's no longer possible to produce new chalchiel bronze. As stewards of this wonder-metal, we at Loche Casting cannot sell you our products, but we are happy to announce our new leasing program! Apply today to carry a powerful artifact of the past into the future of tomorrow!

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Riften's College

A college was founded following the industrial accident that destroyed the first-and-so-far-only blast furnace, and granted the city of Riften its name. The Riften College of Metallurgy Mephistophewergy & Monstromology is often shortened to Riften CM. The school offers certifications and degrees in these three overlapping fields.

Commercial bloomeries, smelters, and other furnaces always operate with at least one metallurg and one bulwark (mephistophewerg) on staff at a time. These professionals work in tandem with skilled laborers to ensure the quality of the product and the sanctity of the facilities.

Mephistophewergy is considered a sub-field of monstromology and there is currently great debate on the classification of lunar beings as true demons or merely monsters similar to the demons of the furnace. Critics point to the narrow set of characteristics displayed by furnace demons, while proponents bespeak to how similarities between furnace demons & lunar beings set them as a distinct category of monsters. However, the average trained slayer shirks taxonomic & academic debate in favor of practical monstromological skills.

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If anything is a deity, The Vagrant is a deity. It resembles a jellyfish the size of a mountain drifting through the sky with uncountably many tentacles.

Either It creates terrible storms or seeks them out. This point is contentious, but the storms seem less damaging than their ferocity would suggest when The Vagrant is present.

The Vagrant is also an associate of death. When a person cannot go on as-they-are they offer themselves to It. Some people are taken, and others are left behind. Those who remain may receive a series of images as consolatory guidance, or may be forced to find their own way.

Those who are taken by The Vagrant are considered dead by their communities, but they're not dead in the same way as those called by The Wood or the victims of violence. These people may be returned to another time or place where they live out the remainder of their lives. Sometimes it seems as if they're set back on the ground immediately, but the person has experienced time outside of space where their inner burdens have been removed.

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I was at Lowe's on Saturday (July the twenty fucking ninth!) and they already had a Halloween display out.

Pride Month Pt. II has officially begun!

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A secret fact about the fantasy setting I'm building is that things are usually happy & nice.

I just don't write about those parts.

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Found this friend is my garden yesterday. I think it's a clubbed mydas fly. Big understudied cinnamon roll with copper sheen wings.

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Tummy hurt

Ate a whole mango for breakfast like a goblin. Hands were covered in mango juice. Scraped at the pit and skin with my bottom teeth to get every last bit.