Hasshaku-sama

Hasshaku-sama or the Eight Foot Tall Lady or simply the Tall Lady is a japanese urban legend started in the 2000s in Japan and appearing on 2chan in 2008 in a scary story posted there.

Hasshaku-sama is said to have a variety of ages and clothing, but almost always around eight feet (2.4 meters) and very pale skin. She frequents isolated locations and will hunt you down unless you hide in a room with protective talismans to ward her off.

She can mimic people’s voices to lure them towards her and is relentless in her pursuit once she’s targeted you.

Notes

  • She’s been compared to Slenderman as they are both tall thin beings who had stories about them circulate online message boards.
  • She’s also been compared to Yama-onna (the mountain woman) who is a yokai who stalks people in the rural mountainside. See here.
  • The image comes from the horror game Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water where Hasshaku-sama appears as a spirit you can encounter.

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Prester John

Prester John was a mythical christian king who was said to rule over a country somewhere in Asia (or Africa) with legends and stories about him and his kingdom spanning centuries.

the idea of Prester John is said to originate from a letter that the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos received in 1165. The letter was said to be from: “John, Christian Sovereign and Lord of Lords”

His kingdom was told in the letter to be quite rich and civilized, with it being a quite warped view of what Central Asia/India was understood by Europeans to be like.

In the letter he claimed that he had a father called Quasideus (God-like) who built this kingdom after being spoken to by God.

The location of this mythical kingdom changed over the centuries as Europe began to more broadly trade with asia. Centuries later people believed the kingdom to be in Ethiopia or elsewhere in Africa.

Today it’s broadly understood that while Prester John wasn’t real it may have been a case of stories warping about the Keraites, a Khanate located around where modern day Mongolia is. They had converted to the Church of the East (often called the Nestorian Church) a branch of Christianity.

Notes

  • There’s a minor Marvel villain called Prester John, see here. Not that relevant but I thought it interesting, he mostly seems to fight Deadpool and the Fantastic Four at times.

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Ghost of Maules

Le Loyon or The Ghost of Maules was an urban legend in the area around the village of Maules, Switzerland. An unidentified person roamed the forests in a gas mask and dressed in a military boilersuit in addition to a cloak.

First sightings date towards the turn of the millennium but only reached global news coverage in 2013 when the Ghost of Maules was photographed and the press ran stories about them. They then left their gear out in the open and criticized the media attention and tales of them as a dangerous boogeyman. No sightings of them have been reported since 2013.

Le Loyon was often seen picking flowers according to some reports.

Notes

  • Image of a soldier during a military operation in Germany. Shown here simply to illustrate what the Ghost of Maules looked like to people. For more info click here.

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Nancy Drew

painting of a blonde girl with blue eyes in a blue coat and blue hat holding a large clock in a forest

Nancy Drew is a sixteen year old girl who is the daughter of a very well known lawyer and former district attorney. She comes from money but is generally polite and well spoken. She frequently starts to sleuthing because of her rather sharp reasoning skills.

Nancy Drew has a sidekick in the form of her friend Helen Corning who is a more typical teenage girl than Nancy.

She’s often unassuming making folks underestimate her abilities as a detective.

Notes

  • Only the first four books from 1930 are public domain. The later books or the revisions of those books are not public domain.

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Scarface

Tony “Scarface” Guarino is a character based on Al Capone the Chicago crime boss. The crime thriller novel was written by Armitage Trail and was a smash hit, altho sadly the author died of a heart attack shortly after selling the film rights to the book.

The book was adapted into the 1932 film Scarface as well as the 1983 remake of said film which is probably the one people know about, the famous Al Pacino movie.

The book is in the public domain as the rights were never renewed in the US and in other countries it has long since lapsed in copyright due to Armitage’s premature death at only 28 in 1930.

Notes

The 1932 film will become public domain in 2028. The 1983 movie and original elements to it are of course not public domain.

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Gorilla Grodd

Gorilla Grodd is a staple character in the Flash’s Rogue’s Gallery. He’s a superintelligent gorilla from Gorilla City, a highly advanced metropolis and he has the ability to use telepathy and is super strong.

Gorilla Grodd is public domain due to a failure to renew Flash #106 from 1959, meaning the copyright expired in 1988.

Barry Allen and other Flash characters remain under copyright. I also could find no trademark for Gorilla Grodd, but maybe i just didn’t search thoroughly enough.

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Wikipedia

Clifford

image of a book cover with a black background, the title in the upper left corner reads Clifford the Big Red Dog, in the lower right corner in small it reads Story and pictures by Norman Bridwel in between them is a drawing of a red colored dog who is very large as seen by the small girl drawn on his backk hugging him

Clifford is a big red dog who belongs to Emily and causes mischief but is ultimately a good dog.

While Clifford the Big Red Dog was registered for copyright in 1963 upon its publication it was not renewed in 1991 therefore the first book and only the first book is public domain.

Notes

  • Clifford the Big Red Dog is still a registered trademark owned by The Norman Bridwell Massachusetts Marital Trust.

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Nick Vrenna

image of a bionic looking person with claws and a big gun body is green with some armoring and a brown helmet with one big slit. he seems to be posing in a sci looking corridor thats currently on fire

The game Abuse is a run n gun 2d platformer published by EA for MS-DOS. The game featured the character Nick Vrenna fighting through hordes of monsters who are former inmates of a prison he was wrongfully sent to. Some expirment goes haywire that turned everyone into monsters except Nick who is immune now he’s trying to stop the local water supply from being infected in the same manner.

Abuse was developed by Crackdotcom, who in 1997 released the game into the public domain along with releasing the source code. The only thing not public domain was the sound effect as they did not own those.

Crackdotcom would go out of business around the same time and likely what prompted the release of Abuse into the public domain.They had another project that was cancelled around the same time which most likely contributed.

It’s got a cult following despite having that 90s edginess to it and obviously involving abuse as like its central focus albeit it doesnt really go much further than the lab experiments from what i gather.

Notes

  • The sound effects are not public domain as those were not owned by Crackdotcom.
  • The original creators do retain a trademark for “Abuse” for video games and was why the game Alien Abuse on iOS caused a release of Abuse Classic by the owner of the trademark to force it to get taken down.

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Pink Panther

redish background,, pictured is a cartoon character who is an anthropomorphic panther who is pink with lighter features on the muzzle and belly. He has yellow eyes and small ears and long white whiskers. he is holding a film reel strip

The Pink Panther as many likely know is a creation from the 1963 film The Pink Panther which is primarily about a jewel with that name. The Pink Panther was created for promotional material, the trailer and the opening.

He first appeared in the trailer for the film, pictured above which did not have a copyright notice making it public domain. The film itself obviously isn’t but it creates the situation of the Pink Panther, the cartoon panther being public domain.

Notes

Pink Panther is a registered trademark so keep that in mind and any later appearances obviously aren’t public domain.

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Diane Adams

image of a white brunette with long hair in a 70s looking poster pointing a gun, the background is red and theres some thunder coming off a person thats smaller behind her in the distance seemingly a stylistic choice of the poster

Diane Adams is a character from the film Silent Night, Bloody Night from 1972. One of the earliest slasher films and an often overlooked entry in the genre from a time when they really were more influenced by the likes of italian giallo films and of course Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Diane is one of the earliest final girls in the genre and while she doesn’t stand out among her peers she’s still noteworthy in that regard.

The film is often known as Deathouse and initial prints of the film had no copyright notice attached therefore placing it in the public domain.

Diane is the Mayor’s daughter and is one of the central characters of the film, she’s fairly reserved and rightfully paranoid but tries to get to the bottom of things throughout.

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