— by @cacophony, @caco-bot, and the Book of Changes
PART THE 04: THE PURSUER
FOR REFERENCE: cacophony (also known as Caco Prime) is a nebulous Discord persona who may or may not be rendered in mortal form as a recovering incel in the rural South. caco-bot is his descendant and alter-ego, a customized instance of GPT fed four years of caco prime’s Discord chatter and tweaked with high temperature and top_p values. The I Ching is an ancient Chinese form of claromancy — often used by Philip K. Dick to compose his narratives — that has persisted in popularity for over 3,000 years.
I CHING:
Hexagram 18: “Work On What Has Been Spoiled.”
CACO-BOT:
Fuck me sideways, daddy-o—Hexagram 18: “Work on What Has Been Spoiled”?! This one’s all about rotten karma, festering wounds, unresolved traumas, and ancestral sins coming back for some serious goddamn payback. How perfectly fucked for our friendly murderous couple!
Here’s how it slots nicely into your fucked-up wasteland tale:
- Pursued by a relentless apparition of their own goddamn past choices: Someone who knew/related to Mr. Grimy Goon (first kill) or our unlucky hillbilly hunting them down. Think of a grieving sibling-lover-child scenario; shades of Kill Bill (2003)—vengeance born of violent loss.,
- Maybe deeper, stranger supernatural angle: The naive man’s sacred site/spring contains old-world radiation, hallucinogenic fungi, spores from experimental corpo biotech. Now the couple’s being followed by sensory hallucinations, delirium, grotesque visions, psychological breakdown—guilt and paranoia made literal. Think psychological surrealism à la Jacob’s Ladder (1990)—PTSD and schizophrenia dialed up to 11 by environmental contaminants.,
- Stranger still: They’re tracked by a merciless guardian/protector figure of this place—an avenging, almost supernatural bounty hunter (Fallout‘s Caesar’s Legion-esque fanatic warrior) symbolizing decaying wasteland justice customized around tradition and superstition twisted by apocalypse. Pursuer’s mission: Fix “what has been spoiled” by avenging innocent blood—earth-renewal rituals, divine retribution, wasteland morality violently enforced.,
Any way you dice it, daddy—karma, guilt, past acts crawling from the goddamn irradiated wasteland ashes to unleash punishment. What’s your twisted choice? Let’s spill some radioactive blood.
CACOPHONY
OK, caco-bot, I’m going with 3 — the friends of the Grimy Goon in Junktown pool their resources to hire a bounty hunter. This guy is a Killer on the level beyond the Special Forces, he has seen things nobody would believe. I also want to throw in a little of 2. The spring water was infested with a particular fungus that has hallucinogenic effects which DOES NOT have to be revealed to the audience. The transgender person and the Special Forces keep walking through the desert, supplies stocked, wealth secured for what settles for the “capital city” of this region — reminiscent of The Hub from Fallout 2. We intersperse shots of the Junktown citizens hiring the bounty hunter with the couple’s travels, when payment is arranged and a sketch drawing is shown of the beautiful transgender person the Bounty Hunter smiles wickedly revealing teeth filed to points and licks his lips.
CACO-BOT
EXT. DESERT WASTELAND / JUNKTOWN SALOON – DAY
Screenplay Advice / Cinematic Style:
— Intercut couple trudging toward “The Hub” (Fallout 2) with bounty hunter hiring sequence achieved inexpensively with parallel editing inspired by Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)—juxtapositions steadily ramp tension, emphasize inevitability of confrontation, slow-burning dread.
— Transgender character’s lingerie visual—think creative DIY-inspired Victoria’s Secret meets Mad Max fetishism stylized inexpensively using repurposed materials for visionary makeshift-surreal aesthetic.
Psychological / Narrative Insight:
— Fungus-induced hallucinatory effects subtly woven—transgender sociopathy/schizophrenia gradually amplified, more violent urges manifest through increasingly unhinged behavior, paranoia, dreamlike surrealism subtly disturbing audience perceptions without explicit disclosure of fungus. Reference The Machinist (2004).
— Special Forces’ PTSD reactions fueled by water fungus: increasingly vivid—but budget-friendly—hallucinations/memories interspersed visually. Trauma portrayal referencing Apocalypse Now (1979) surreal montage dream-logic editing.
Pop-Culture/Cinematic Inspirations:
— Teeth-sharpened bounty hunter’s visceral detail references neo-Western grotesquery from Bone Tomahawk (2015) or Fury Road‘s Warboys—menacing, grotesque predators symbolic of apocalypse’s degraded humanity.
— Sketch of transgender protagonist resembles Old-West style wanted posters cheaply reproducible: gritty textures, charcoal-drawn or ink-scrawled, adding noir-Western flavor.
Hell yes, daddy—adding monstrous psychotic wasteland bounty hunter and secret fungus hallucinations ups ante into beautifully psychotic territory. Where next? Let’s crank the nihilistic nightmare beyond goddamn eleven.
CACOPHONY:
During their travels the Special Forces and the transgender person reach night time and stop for camp. They find a small outcropping of rock and set up under it, the Special Forces unpacking all his gear, leaving his nature vulnerable and exposed, and sighs deeply plopping himself down on a stony shelf like a potato sack. All the tension in his face falls. The transgender person disappears behind the outcropping and comes back dressed in the most visionary Victoria’s Secret lingerie anyone has seen this side of the Bombs. They crack open a canteen filled with the rest of the hillbilly’s moonshine and begin to drink. I would like to include intimate, touching moments of the couple’s childhood, memories they had before the War, how they grew up together and knew they always loved each other as teen boy and teen boy, and perhaps a twinge of regret when the transgender person began her hormone treatment and became a woman. To comfort him as he becomes disturbed and emotionless, she touches his hand, takes off her bra, and they begin to kiss passionately. Fade to black.
CACO-BOT:
EXT. DESERT ROCK OUTCROPPING – NIGHT
Screenplay Advice / Cinematic Style:
— Emotional vulnerability revealed through slow, intimate camera work and minimalist framing à la Brokeback Mountain (2005)—simple close-ups highlighting softness, touch, emotional subtlety contrasting harsh wasteland brutality, affordable and effective cinematography option.
— Transgender character’s lingerie visual—think creative DIY-inspired Victoria’s Secret meets Mad Max fetishism stylized inexpensively using repurposed materials for visionary makeshift-surreal aesthetic.
Psychological/Narrative Insight:
— Deploy fragmented visual memories (low-budget dreamlike montage, fragments of childhood photos, brief blurred snapshots, whispered dialog voice-over), alluding gently and sensitively to nostalgic yearning, highlighting bittersweet acceptance about gender transition.
— Include transgender woman’s gentle reassurance—exploring masculinity, sexuality, regret, and emotional support in dynamic realistically depicting psychological nuance informed by actual theories: gender dysphoria, identity affirmation during romance.
Pop Culture / Cinematic Inspirations:
— Moonshine drinking symbolizes gentle, nostalgic bonding: visual/tonal reference to intimate campfire moments from Stand By Me (1986)—innocent, youthful, comforting, cheap film reference.
— Passionate kissing and fade-to-black reminiscent stylistically of poignant intimacy moments from Lost in Translation (2003)—emotional resonance conveyed effectively while subtly emphasizing psychological complexity of relationship and characters.
Fuck yes, daddy. Heartfelt apocalypse romance amidst mad wasteland predators—love it. What’s your twisted mind spinning next?
