#monster agency productions

[geekcavepodcast]

"Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special" Announces Creative Teams

Skybound and Image Comics have announced the creatives behind Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special. The anthology is based on the TV series from Greg Nicotero, licensed by Cartel Entertainment, and overseen by Nicotero's Monster Agency Productions' Brian Witten.

Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special will contain two horrifying holiday tales. Tini Howard, Blake Howard, and Stevan Subic's story follows a fiendish New Year's Eve party that "will have you crying for your mummy." Rob Williams and Pye Parr's tale has comedian Terry Reno revisiting a holiday classic "that quickly takes a shocking turn before a live studio audience." (Skybound)

Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special goes on sale on December 18, 2024. The issue features a main cover by Martín Morazzo and Chris O'Halloran, an open-to-order variant cover by Pye Parr, and the continuation of the 1:10 incentive cover connecting series by Steve Beach.

(Image via Skybound - Martín Morazzo and Chris O'Halloran's Cover of Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special)

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by A.N.I.M.

Allow us to introduce ourselves, we are The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery, or “A.N.I.M.”, a very small TTRPG studio based out of the southern U.S. but ultimately made up of people from many different walks of life.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is a neo-noir investigation-focused RPG with (as you can probably guess from the title) a supernatural twist, that is currently in production after an extremely successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

How far would you go to learn the truth?

Play amateur detectives caught up in things they barely understand, and explore how the lives of your characters unravel as they push themselves to dig deeper into the unknown!

Eureka innovates on and revolutionizes investigative gameplay, TTRPG combat, and what it means to play as a monster as a character in a TTRPG, filling several voids we have noticed in the TTRPG space. Eureka supports investigation to a degree never before seen, ensuring that searching for clues is a granular and player-driven process, but also ensuring that the whole story doesn’t grind to a halt after one single failed investigation check.

Character-driven gameplay!

Stats and abilities are based on who your character is as a person. Freeform character creation allows you to build a totally unique little guy, and have a totally unique gameplay experience with him! This is supported by the backbone of the Composure mechanic. Stress, fear, fatigue, and hunger will wear your investigators down as they trudge deeper into the unknown. Food, sleep, and connections with their fellow investigators are the only way to keep them going!

Secrets inside and out! 

Any investigator could be a monster, helping their friends while trying not to reveal their true natures. The party will learn to trust and rely on each other, or explode into a tangled net of drama!

Though most PCs will be mundane humans—or perhaps because most PCs will be mundane humans—Eureka also supports playing monstrous PCs, such as a vampire, in a way never seen before. This isn’t just a watered-down stat bonus, it’s like playing an almost entirely different game, with all the monster’s strengths and weaknesses to account for while solving the mystery, plus the added incentive to keep it a secret from the other PCs as well as their players.

(You can also play as something like The Thing from John Carpenter's The Thing!)

If you like or are interested in Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Dresden Files, X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Apocalypse Keys, World of Darkness, or Gumshoe, you’ll probably find something in Eureka to really enjoy.

Intense, tactical combat! 

Hits are devastating, and misses are unpredictable–firing a gun will always change the situation somehow, for better or for worse!

Now in Technicolor!

Evocative artwork from talented femme-fatales @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot and the mysterious @theblackwarden paint a gorgeously-realized portrait of a world with shadows lurking in every corner.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[vinylmango]

Flower Delivery (pt. 3)

(ex!Nicholas alexander chavez x ex!black!reader)

Requests:

no cause you’re most recent nicholas chavez fic ATE DOWNNN girl pls write another i beg. or literally just other nicholas chavez fics cause your writing is incredible!! - 🍒

And

I know you literally just posted flower delivery part 2 but I need part three! It’s sooooo good!!!! - anon

Description: Just when you think your life is back on track and you landed a new leading role, he’s thrust back into your life when you find out he’s in the show too. Now as you start filming, you aren’t really sure what you want anymore.

Warnings: obsessive behaviors (cont’d), he’s your scene partner…turned kinda lover (kissing only), Ryan Murphy jumpscare (yikes), mentions of episode 4 of grotesquerie (just one scene)

Word count: 2.9k words

Note: Sorry for the delay on part 3, work has been working lol, but I really appreciate all of the kindness and love everyone has been showing my posts/page <3 I ended up writing this four different times before I finally decided I liked it lol and I decided to make it longer to make up for my lack of content since I posted the last one.

Also I know the timeline is a little wonky in this in terms of Nicholas’ filming schedule for Monsters and Grotesquerie, so let’s just pretend he finished filming for Monsters completely before starting filming for Grotesquerie.

Thanks for the request 🍒 and anon!

part one part two

masterlist

You couldn’t believe it, it was almost too good to be true. There hadn’t been any surprise deliveries or week-night break-ins for the past six months. It was almost like he just disappeared for the past six months, and part of you was relieved since you no longer had to worry about his annoying and unhinged behavior; but another part of you secretly missed him, although you had been trying to convince yourself that it was only because you had gotten so used to his presence that now it was just…different.

Since the last time he had showed up at your place unannounced you had finished the project you had been working on and landed a new lead role in a brand new Ryan Murphy project, Grotesquerie.

Although you were well aware of the controversies surrounding the director, your new agency convinced you to take the role. It was so different from anything you had ever done before, and you had been wanting to try the horror genre. It was so new, in fact, that you hadn’t even had the opportunity to meet the rest of the cast since you hadn’t auditioned in the traditional way and Ryan himself had asked you to take the role.

You were up bright and early to be on set for the first day of filming for Grotesquerie. You arrived on set at 6:30 and headed straight to the hair and makeup trailer after briefly saying hello to Ryan, the production team, and the other writers that were on set. You still hadn’t seen your scene partners, assuming they were in hair and makeup as well.

You fell into a comfortable conversation with the hair stylist and makeup artist, telling them about your other project and how you were a fairly new actor.

“Girl, don’t talk down about yourself like that. Everyone starts somewhere.” The makeup artist, Darryl, told you squeezing your shoulder as Keisha, your hair stylist, nodded in the mirror.

“Thanks.” You smiled at the pair of them before you all turned when your trailer door opened. A woman with bright red hair and green eyes walking in with a small smile on her face.

“Hey Sue!” Darryl and Keisha smiled and waved at her.

“Hey D. Hi Keisha!” The middle aged woman smiled. “Hi (y/n), it’s great to meet you. I’m Sue. I’m just here to make sure your wardrobe is correct for the upcoming scene.” She explained as you nodded. “We had a slight change to the filming schedule to work around scheduling conflicts for some of our crew so we’ll be filming a little out of order today.”

“Oh ok. No worries.” You smiled. “What’s the change?”

“Our intimacy coordinator has to pick her son up from school early today so we have to get the scenes she’s involved with out of the way first.” She explained. “When you’re done with hair and makeup and have your wardrobe on then she’ll quickly meet with you to discuss the way it will be filmed.”

“Ok. Thanks for the heads up, Sue.” You smiled again, though Darryl and Keisha could tell you were becoming anxious when Sue left.

“Don’t be nervous, (Y/n). Sarah, our intimacy coordinator, is amazing.” Keisha reassured you.

“And I know this is obviously your job, but the actor is…hot.” Darryl added after a slight pause. You and Keisha laughed as he pretended to fan himself.

Hair and makeup finished shortly after that and you were dressed and ready to go after Keisha made sure that the habit you wore in the scene was placed correctly.

You exited the trailer as you noticed a dark haired woman with curly hair was talking to a tall, broad man, dressed in a jacket with a thick white towel wrapped around his waist…your scene partner. Darryl was right. At least from the back, the man was hot and muscular.

Your hands grew clammy as you walked up to them, Sarah smiling and waving you over. You wore a small smile as you approached. The smile was replaced with your jaw nearly dropping when the man who was to be your scene partner turned around causing you to almost stop in your tracks. “(Y/n) have you met Nicholas yet?” Sarah asked as you joined their conversation.

“Yeah. We’ve…uh…met before.” You said, fighting against the lump in your throat that was forming. Your mouth was so dry it felt like you might choke. You swallowed visibly as Nicholas smirked at you.

You glanced over his appearance. Although the jacket he was wearing was pretty loose around him and pretty much hid his upper body completely, you could still tell he was way more muscular than he had been when you saw him last.

“Great!” She smiled with a clap of her hands. “Let’s head inside and talk through the scene then.” You and Nicholas nodded as you followed her inside the filming location. “Alright so the way the scene currently lays this out is (Y/n) you’ll come from the doorway to sit in this chair, Nicholas you’ll come from the bathroom there and then walk over to the door, close it, and then stand in front of the chair. You’ll say your lines and then (y/n) you’ll stand and you’ll walk backwards until you get to here.” She stopped at the dresser that was sitting below the cross that was on the wall. “Nicholas you’ll lift (y/n) and put her down sitting on the dresser and then the scene will play out…any questions about that?” She asks as you both shake your heads no. “Alright. Anything either of you don’t feel comfortable doing?”

“I’m ok.” Nicholas said, though you could feel his eyes burning into the side of your face.

“I’m good.” You agreed, looking at Sarah instead.

“Great!” She smiled. “And the intimacy garments are ok? Do either of you want a different one?”

“This one is ok, thanks Sarah.” You told her as Nicholas agreed.

“It’s good, thanks Sarah.”

“Alright, great. Thank you guys. I’ll be behind the camera the whole time so if we need to do a few takes I’ll be here to help with anything. If you want to try something else at any time we can do that too.” She explained as you both nodded.

How did you always manage to get yourself into situations like these?

She excused herself, telling the pair of you that she was off to get the production team and Ryan to let them know you both were good to go. Nicholas turned to you, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and an almost wolfish grin on his face.

You had to admit that he did look really good. The way he was leaning allowed you to see his abs between the gap in the jacket since he hadn’t zipped it up. “You’re staring.”

“You’re the one smirking at me.” You redirected as he stood up off the wall and took a step closer to you.

“Like what you see?” His voice seemed deeper, huskier, as his dark eyes scanned over you before settling back on yours. He sent you a wink as Ryan and the production team followed by Sarah came back and Nicholas walked past you to his mark, handing his jacket to an assistant as you went into the hallway to wait for the scene to start.

“Action!” You heard the sound of the water shut off and you peaked your head into Father Charlie’s room before coming to stand in the doorway.

He glanced back before walking to stand a few paces in front of you next to the bed, the towel low on his hips and water droplets cascading down his chest. His hair was pushed back from his face and wet as if he really had just gotten out of the shower. “You were watching me. Earlier in the rec room.” He paused, watching your expression but you remained neutral. “Anything worth seeing?”

“It…It was…” you paused for a moment, letting out a breath. “An exhalation of God’s glory through physical prowess.”

“Yeah?” Nicholas sat on the bed, his face turned slightly down but his eyes raised to look over at you. A slow smile appeared on his face. That was not scripted, you knew that for sure. “It’s kinda become my side hustle.” He said after a second. Back to the script. He said his other lines as you continued to sit in the chair, back stiff against the back of the chair as your hands laid in your lap.

“They say…it’s a sin of the flesh, but, I say-“ he began to say as you cut him off with your lines.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, which is in you? Therefore honor God with your bodies.” You responded softly as he nodded, breathing out a simple ‘Yes’.

He stood up from the bed and stopped to stand in front of you, your gaze following him. He smirked at you, something the camera didn’t catch, before dropping the expression and walking to the door and closing it. To say your heart was beating fast would’ve been an understatement.

“This is exactly what they’re talking about right now at the Vatican.” You zoned out for a moment after he started delivering his lines, walking to stand in front of you again. You zoned back in when you heard the end of his line “celibacy, for those in the cloth.”

He reached over to you as you sharply inhaled when his fingers played with the cross necklace you wore. That wasn’t scripted either. You could see that he enjoyed catching you off guard and no one was yelling cut because the extra touches made sense for your characters.

“That’s…That’s difficult to imagine.” Your voice caught and he smirked as you looked up at him and swallowed thickly. It was an honest mistake on your part, but Nicholas was eating it up. At moments it was hard to tell whether he was currently in the mindset of Father Charlie Mayhew or Nicholas Chavez.

He licked his lips, still holding onto the necklace, his voice lowering. “Is it really so difficult?” He said more but you zoned out again when his hand released your necklace and unbuttoned your vest. He was delivering his lines while standing to the side of you, bent down in your face, so your faces were only inches apart.

You dropped the newspaper in your hand as he continued unbuttoning your vest, slowly. You hadn’t meant to, but no one yelled cut again, so you assumed it was fine. “The church is dying, Mother Eva.” He said as you breathed out again, not breaking eye contact. You could see in his eyes that he was amused, he definitely was enjoying this scene.

He delivered more lines and bent in closer to you and you couldn’t help your instinctive reaction. Your lips parted as if you were preparing for him to kiss you, like he used to do. All of this was like a flashback to how it used to be, and yeah, he had been unhinged but there was no denying that he was incredibly passionate.

“They know that change must come.” He said softly, your nose touching his before he stepped back completely from you, this time standing directly in front of you. He looked down at you as you took the opportunity to look over his body before looking down at the towel like you were supposed to do. You followed the scene instructions and pulled the towel from around his waist, letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud. You looked back up slowly at his face, your lips slightly parted as you watched him.

“It is still a sin.” You said as he picked your hand up and kissed your hand and wrist. He walked you over to the dresser like the scene outlined.

“We are…and we always will be.” He backed you up into the dresser, your shoes hitting it causing it to bump against the wall.

“Sinners.” You finished, practically whispering as your eyes looked over his face as he picked you up onto the dresser, his hands running down your sides as he stood in between your legs and your lips practically touched.

“So fuck it.” You could feel the movement of his lips against yours as he spoke, pulling the vest from your arms as you pushed your chest into him to get the vest off. He began unbuttoning your shirt and pulled the edge off one shoulder as he began to kiss there, your hands going to his hair.

Someone behind the camera coughed and the loud “Cut!” pulled you both completely out of the scene. You let out a gasp as Nicholas pressed a lingering kiss to your neck before stepping back.

You blinked a few times, your hands holding onto the edge of the dresser, as you let out a breath. You didn’t miss the way Nicholas wore a smug expression, but your smile widened when you pointed down subtly.

Nicholas raised his shoulders in a shrug as he secured the towel back around his waist. “Let’s take 15 and run it again. Thanks Jerry for ruining that take!” Ryan called passive aggressively. Jerry, the man who coughed, looked as if he wanted the earth to swallow him up.

You slid off the dresser and walked to your trailer, not noticing the way Nicholas excused himself just after you, easily falling into step behind you.

You fell onto the couch with a huff, annoyed at yourself for being reminded of the past. You were over him, there was no way you were going to entertain him again. All he did was bring chaos into your life.

“He broke into your apartment, remember?” You whispered to yourself, eyes widening when your trailer door opened and in walked Nicholas, closing and locking the door behind him.

“I know you still feel the same way I do.” He started as you shook your head. He stepped closer to you, standing in front of you much like the scene you had just had.

“You’re wrong.” He shook his head, smiling at your stubbornness.

“I saw the way you were looking at me. You got into it. It wasn’t just acting.”

“Says the guy who just tried to give me an unscripted hickey.” You retorted defensively, standing up suddenly and poking him. He caught your hand, intertwining your fingers with his as he pulled you closer, leaning down so he was only a couple inches away from your lips.

“Tell me you don’t want this.” He whispered as you remained quiet. “Tell me you don’t want me to ki-“ He was cut off by your lips crashing into his. You weren’t even thinking at that point. He was intoxicating, everything about him was intoxicating and you knew that you should just stay away, but it was him. It was hard to make rational decisions when he was so close and his very presence cleared all of the rationality from your brain.

He pulled back after the heated kiss, a smirk on his face as he looked at you. “So I was right.” He remarked, there goes the cockiness.

“Oh my God, just shut up.” You rolled your eyes before he obliged and pulled you close, his hands traveling up and down your body as yours ran through his hair and held onto his shoulders and biceps. He broke the kiss again to plant kisses from your lips to your neck, his teeth scraping against the sensitive skin on your neck, surely leaving a mark that you weren’t sure how you would explain.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” You said, but you didn’t pull away from him. “The camera is going to see all of the marks you're leaving and we won’t be able to explain it away.”

“We’re filming a sex scene. It’ll be fine.” He decided as your nails ran down his arms, careful of the makeup and special effects on his back.

He groaned against your lips when a loud knock at the trailer door interrupted your activities. “They’re ready for you on set. Hair and makeup is just going to do some touch ups before we shoot again.” An assistant called as you placed a hand on his chest and stepped back.

“See you on set.” You said before stepping out of the trailer and walking over towards where Keisha and Darryl were waiting to do touch ups.

“(Y/n), why is your makeup so messed up around your mouth? Y'all didn’t even shoot a kiss yet.”

Let me know what else you’d like to see or share any ideas you might have!

[dunmeshistash]

Ryoko Kui Exhibition & ''Delicious in Dungeon'' Exhibition pamphlet

Transcript under the cut

Disclaimer is that I used an image to text website and then proof-read it myself and made corrections where it got the text wrong. There was a few typos in the original text (like writing fied instead of fried) but I kept those in just in case I interpreted something as a typo but it wasn't.

[page 1]

Ryoko Kui Exhibition & "Delicious in Dungeon" Exhibition Introducing Ryoko Kui (1) Manga artist. After working through her website "Nishi ni wa ryū ga ita" (A dragon in the west) and her own dojinshi (self-published works), Kui made a debut with "Ryu no gakko wa yama no ue: Kui Ryoko sakuhin-shu" (The dragon's school is on top of the mountain: Ryoko kui works) published with EAST PRESS in 2011. Then published "Kui Ryoko sakuhin-shu: Ryū no kawaii nanatsu no ko" (Ryoko Kui collection: Seven Little Sons of the Dragon) in 2012 with KADOKAWA, and "Hikidashi ni terrarium" (Terrarium in Drawer) in 2013 with EAST PRESS. In 2014 she started her first long-running series "Dungeon Meshi" (Delicious in Dungeon) in KADOKAWA's magazine Harta. In January 2024, she released her book, "Kui Ryoko rakugaki bon Daydream Hour" (Ryoko Kui's sketchbook: Daydream Hour) of illustrations she made while working on "Delicious in Dungeon" as well as illustrations from before her debut. She has a diverse range, from science fiction and fantasy to historical dramas. The world building in her fantasy works is particularly unique, as they merge the extraordinary into the everyday to create an overwhelming realism and persuasiveness through meticulously refined settings. Kui won the Excellence Award in the Manga Division for "Terrarium in Drawer" at the 17th Japan Media Arts Festival by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and "Delicious in Dungeon" has been awarded numerous accolades, including the 2015 Comic Natalie Grand Prize, TAKARAJIMASHA's award for This Manga is Amazing! 2016 Men's category 1st place, the Nationwide Bookstore Employees' most Recommended Manga of 2016, and the 55th Seiun Award in the Manga category, which is awarded to outstanding science fiction works. Introduction (2) Delicious in Dungeon" is a hugely popular manga; over 14 million copies have been sold.* To celebrate its anime adaptation, the large-scale exhibition "Delicious in Dungeon" Exhibition was held in Tokyo and Nagoya from April 2024. This exhibition is a continuation of the touring "Delicious in Dungeon" Exhibition, with the addition of the Ryoko Kui Exhibition; the first exhibition of artwork by the original artist Ryoko Kui. In the Ryoko Kui Exhibition, you can see her outstanding character designs, realistic settings and the unique narrative developments which have captivated readers, through reproductions of manga manuscripts and interview exhibits. We hope that you enjoy exploring the fascinating world of Ryoko Kui. In the "Delicious in Dungeon" Exhibition, you can enjoy photo spots, and impressive three-dimensional monster displays from the labyrinth adventures undertaken by Laios and his companions in the first season of the anime. We hope you will enjoy the fun of the original manga, the anime, and the exhibition to your heart's content. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Ryoko Kui and the original editorial team, including everyone involved in the anime production and everyone who helped with the planning of this exhibition.

Ryoko Kui Exhibition & "Delicious in Dungeon" Exhibition Executive Committee

As of April 2024, including digital editions.

The dragon's school is on top of the mountain (3) This is Ryoko Kui's debut work, and her first collected volume of works. Published in 2011, it collects seven of her stories previously published on her website and in doujinshi (self-published works), as well as two new stories. It includes a trilogy of tales which may have taken place behind the scenes of the heroes' adventures in a Role-Playing Game; and which follow the conventions of an RPG. These are "Kikyō" (Return home), which portrays the sorrow of a hero having returned to his hometown after defeating the Demon King; "Mao" (The demon king), which tells the tale of the Demon King from his birth to his downfall; and "Maō jō mondai" (The problem of the demon king castle), which depicts the course of events surrounding the demon castle having lost its master. The story "Gendai shinwa" (Modern myths) depicts the daily lives of coexisting horsepeople (centaurs) and ape-people (homo sapiens), told from the perspectives of a centaur and homo sapien married couple, and a female homo sapien company employee and her junior male centaur. It comically depicts real-life issues such as anti-labor regulation demonstrations, and the disparity between retirement benefits and life expectancy, and as such can be considered satire of the diverse issues faced by modern society. The title story "The dragon's school is on top of the mountain" is set in a university that has the only "Faculty od Dragons" in Japan. It depicts the members of the dragon research society who seek out ways to use dragons, which apparently have no demand in modern society. They explore uses for dragons, such as for food, as pets, and as advertising media. Other highlights include Kui's sad love stories, told from unique perspectives, such as the fairytale-esque "Daikon yama no yome sagashi" (A bride for Daikon mountain) which tells the tale of a man's efforts to marry a female god in order to bring fortune to his poor village, and "Shingaku tenshi" (School-going angel) which depicts the woes of a high school girl with angel wings.

[page 2]

Seven Little Sons of the Dragon (4) This collection of short stories includes self-published works and short stories published in KADOKAWA publishing's magazine Fellows! throughout 2011 and 2012. The collected volume was published in 2012. The stories are set in different countries and time periods, featuring supernatural beings such as dragons, mermaids, gods, and werewolves. "Ryū no Shōtō” (The dragon turret) is set in two neighboring mountains and sea kingdoms. A dragon builds a nest and lays eggs on the border at the only crossroad connecting two warring nations. The nations declare a ceasefire in fear of the dragon, but as peddlers are also unable to come and go, supplies become scarce. A Sea Kingdom soldier who was taken as a prisoner of war by the Mountain Kingdom is tasked with transporting supplies between the kingdoms, and in time he becomes close with a girl of the mountain Kingdom. But the time for the dragons to leave their nest is approaching, meaning that the war will begin again. “Ōkami wa uso wo tsukanai" (Wolves don't lie) starts out with the premise of being a parenting manga by a manga artist whose son has "werewolf syndrome", then suddenly turns into a story told from the perspective of the son, who is a werewolf. The feudal drama "Kane nashi Byakuroku" (Byakuroku the penniless) tells the story of an elderly gifted artist who always leaves out one eye because otherwise his creatures come to life and pop out of the paper. He is deceived by his apprentice and left penniless, so paints both eyes into the only work remaining, counterfeit picture of a samurai. He enlists the somewhat incompetent fake samurai who has come to life, to help him raise money, and misadventures ensue. Each of these precious seven stories depict the bond between parents and children, family members, and loved ones. While humorous, they are also emotionally stirring.

Terrarium in Drawer (5) This is a collection of short stories that were published in the literary web magazine MATOGROSSO (EAST PRESS), as well as the cat anthology “Nyansolo” (EAST PRESS), Aoharu (Shueisha) and doujinshi. The story “Ryū no gekirin" (Wrath of the dragon) portrays the process of cooking dragon cuisine from preparation to seasoning with trivia about the ingredients. "Kigō wo taberu" (Eating symbols) depicts unique ways of cooking symbols such as circles being fied whole, while squares are sliced thinly and served with sashimi soy sauce. A motif that is also common in "Delicious in Dungeon" can be found in these stories. Other chapters include “Kawaiku naritai" (I want to be cute) which depicts the makeup techniques of a cat who wants to be beautiful; "Shōtoshōto no shujinkō" (A short, short story's protagonist) which is a meta perspective comedy while having many twists and turns; and "Yume no aru hanashi" (A dreamy story) set in a Santa Claus temping agency during the busy season. You can enjoy 33 diverse stories with creative perspectives and approaches, ranging from science fiction to fantasy and fairy tales. Another charming aspect of this book is the wide variety of styles it showcases, from shojo manga, to horror, gekiga, and even a simple touch of experience-based manga. The homages to famous authors and their works are also quietly amusing. In 2013, this collected volume won the 17th Manga Division Excellence Award of the Japan Media Arts Festival, organized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, which is awarded to outstanding works of art and entertainment.

Delicious in Dungeon (6) This is Ryoko Kui's first long-running series. It began serialization in Harta published by KADOKAWA from February 2014 to 2023, spanning a total of 14 book volumes. The story is set in an expansive labyrinth that suddenly appeared on an island one day. The main character Laios is an adventurer whose sister Falin is devoured by a Red Dragon while exploring the labyrinth. Falin casts a final magic spell which lets Laios and the rest of his companions escape the labyrinth, but they return to rescue and resurrect Falin. However, having lost their equipment and supplies, the group decides to become "self-sufficient” by cooking and eating the monsters they defeat along their way, as they adventure deeper into the labyrinth. Grounded in the familiarity of classic fantasy RPG elements, the series adds its own unique settings and meticulous world building. Its monster cooking scenes are illustrated alongside detailed cooking instructions, making it a never-before-seen labyrinth gourmet manga, which has become an overnight sensation. According to Kui, the motif of "cooking monsters" was born from an idea she had of wanting to depict what falls between the lines of adventures, such as meals and camping, which are typically not depicted in roleplaying games*. The manga has been adapted as a television anime series to run for two seasons from January to June 2024. A second series has also been announced. The series was produced by TRIGGER inc., who also produced and animated a commercial for the manga in 2019.

First published in an interview in Newtype, February 2024 issue.

[Map showing the numbers from each ection from 1 to 8]

[page 3]

"Delicious in Dungeon" Artwork (separate post with pics) Cover illustration draft, vol. 1 Since this was the first volume, I tried out a few different drawings and had the editor and designer choose which ones they wanted, then made small adjustments. I personally liked the top-down draft, and the one of the cooking processes (back cover) the best. But looking back, I sincerely think it's good that we didn't go with those. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 2 The format was decided for volume 1. So, volume 2 came together quickly. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 3 I thought it might be cool to make the character Chilchuck darker in the foreground, and the background brighter! But it didn't quite work out the way I had imagined. I think it could have been a bit better. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 4 I remember that the overall shape of volume 4 came together very quickly. The character Senshi's hands didn't fit nicely, so I moved them backwards and to the side. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 5 I thought people might start to think "how many have I bought?" so I wanted to create a slightly different impression with this volume. I decided to put the character right in the center and try putting it together all in blue and green hues. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 6 With the Red Dragon defeated, have we reached the halfway point in the story? With this in mind, I thought of how many volumes were left to go, and the number of characters, and decided to pair up the characters Namari and Shuroiro. In hindsight, it would have been fine to have them on one cover each. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 7 The image is of focus lines converging on the character Izutsumi. This is the kind of cover, with upside down characters, which I've always wanted to try once(?) I submitted it as a trial, thinking that at this point the cover wouldn't dramatically influence sales. However, in the end, we decided it would be better not to have it upside down. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 8 I tried blurring the mushrooms in the foreground, then I accidentally saved over it, and couldn't go back to the original. I remember apologizing that it was probably tacky, when I submitted it. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 9 I don't think snake meat is marbled at all, but if it has an unfamiliar look, people might not recognize it as meat… so I made it look like beef to make it easier to understand. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 10 I thought it might be interesting to have more than one of the main characters on the cover again, so I added the character Falin. I remember it wasn't badly received, but it still ended up just being Thistle on his own. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 11 I wanted this cover to be covered in shiny gold. After I finished it, it didn't have enough color, so I painted the tablecloth green, and it ended up looking like Christmas colors. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 12 Up to this point, the covers have featured one of the main characters holding cooking utensils in the foreground and a monster in the background, but I thought it might be interesting to reverse the format just before the final volume, so I drew this cover with that in mind. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 13 volume 13 was meant to be the final one, but it was too thick to be published as a single volume, so we decided to split it into two. The question of “so, what should I draw next!?" may be at the forefront of volume 13. (Kui)

Cover illustration draft, vol. 14 I had decided that the final cover definitely needed to have everyone eating together on it, but because I was publishing two books at the same time I was pressed for time, and it was difficult to have a cover with so many characters on it. I also submitted a rough for an illustration that didn't need me to draw any crowds, but such obviously easy ideas are never adopted. (Kui)

TV anime "Delicious in Dungeon" About the ending illustration. I drew these based on the director's instruction "This kinds of pictures." I hardly ever have the chance to draw color illustrations, so it was a valuable experience for me. (Kui)

©Ryoko Kui ©Ryoko Kui,KADOKAWA/Delicious in Dungeon PARTNERS ©Ryoko Kui/ EAST PRESS CO.,LTD. Translation by Kyoto International Manga Museum

[page 4]

Interview to celebrate the opening of the Ryoko Kui Exhibition (7) (separate post) About Delicious in Dungeon: Story making

Q1. Your first long-running series has lasted for about 9 and a half years. Has it been different from your previous experience drawing short stories? A1. Compared to short stories, the series has been easier because the same characters appear each time. But I was surprised to find that I got tired of drawing the same characters too many times.

Q2. You have said before that the overall structure of the story was decided before serialization began, but how much of that had you communicated to your editor? Also, what kind of communication did you have during the series production? A2. The goal was something we discussed and had decided on from the beginning. The goal itself was simple, but the path to get there was more difficult and took longer than imagined.

Q3. Regarding the overall story concept and development, did you write out or put anything down in writing (such as the plot)? A3. I did, but it was simple.

Q4. Did you come up with the dishes based on the monsters you wanted in the story? Or did you come up with the monsters based on the dishes? A4. It depended on the story, but usually the story came first followed by the monsters or food. I feel like that was most often the order.

Q5. As you progressed in drawing the series, what elements of the characters, story, or world expanded or grew in the most unexpected way? A5. Nothing particularly unexpected perhaps. When I used to draw web manga, I tended to think up inconsequential settings. So, from the beginning I tried to restrain myself as much as possible and not expand too much. I was surprised when my editor said "Let's expand it more," in the second half of the series.

Q6. "Delicious in Dungeon" starts with a relatively simple setting, but as the series and the labyrinth exploration continues, the map slowly expands little by little in the readers' minds. It becomes more three-dimensional, revealing the secrets of the world, and taking on a multilayered structure. Are there any sources that you used as a reference, or which influenced you in creating this multilayered structure? A6. A long time ago, when I was working on my personal web manga (fantasy), I drew it however I wanted, thinking that "Only people who can read this will read it," but I regularly received feedback that it was "unreadable", so I tried to make it as easily. accessible as possible.

Q7. The series combines many elements, including "fantasy", "gourmet", "battles", and "puzzle solving", but I think it's also important that it is a "comedy" which makes people laugh. Could you let us know if you have a creative commitment towards depicting humor? A7. My hopes are that I can make it fun for people to read.

[page 5]

About Delicious in Dungeon: Drawing manga

Q1. Please tell us about the drawing tools you currently use, both digital and analogue. A1. In terms of analogue tools, I use a light box, a G pen, a round pen, and a brush pen. And for digital, I use CLIP STUDIO PAINT and a Wacom LCD tablet. Screentone pasting is always done on the computer, so ultimately it all ends up as a digital manuscript. Q2. Do you have any rules or reasons for using digital and analog separately? A2. I'm always looking for ways to draw better and save time, so the exact approach is probably different for almost every chapter. Personally, I feel that analogue methods create more appealing lines, but I feel like digital saves time, so maybe I'll do a digital rough sketch and do the inking by hand… I might have been using a G pen, and maybe I'll try out a turnip pen, or this time I'm short on time so I'll draw it entirely digitally, but with digital I can redo it over and over, so maybe analogue is still faster, and so on and so forth. I'm indecisive in this way and so haven't developed a consistent process.

Q3. I understand that you prepare 3D data for your assistants to draw the backgrounds. What kind of data did you make for "Delicious in Dungeon" ? A3. You could call it 3D, but it's not a proper model, just something to help with the rough sketching. I line up cubes to share the perspective and sense of scale, and they use it as a reference.

Q4. At the beginning of the series, the characters and backgrounds were somewhat simply drawn, and it seems like they became richly detailed over the progression of the story. What was your intention behind using these different styles? A4. It's simply that my technique isn't stable. I thought I'd put a lot of effort in at the start. I remember being confused when my editor asked me to add more in to the drawing, and I wondered "Where…?"

Q5. Thinking about the food, were there any menu illustrations that you were particularly satisfied with, or which you struggled with? A5. I've never liked my own food illustrations. But the times when I read other people's manga and thought "That looks delicious," I think it's been more an influence of the movement, the staging, and the situation than the drawings.

Q6. For the world maps and the terrain of each continent, did you refer to any maps of the real world? I feel like the shape of the 'island' is similar to the shape of Fukuoka Prefecture or Kyushu. A6. I didn't reference any specific geography, but I did try to put thought into things like whether a developed city would be near a river or the sea, and what the coastline would look like. I'm pleased if it feels similar to a real place, because it means my interpretation was pretty accurate.

About Delicious in Dungeon: Other

Q1. Which is your favorite monster? A1. Nightmare.

[page 6]

Q2. I'm sure you have received a lot of feedback from readers in countries and regions outside of Japan. Please tell us if there was anything from them that made you happy, was unexpected, or which made a lasting impression on you. A2. When you play foreign games, there are times when you think "Why did they translate it into Japanese like that?" But having been on the side of having something translated, I've realized some things are unavoidable, or endless, and there are many things that don't matter either way from the author's perspective, so it was interesting.

About Ryoko Kui's short story collections and herself Q1. Dragons are a consistent and important motif in your work. Was there any particular work or experience which inspired this? Also, are there points about drawing dragons which you find interesting or have had to work hard on? A1. It's less about liking dragons, and more that I'm interested in the worlds in which dragons exist. When I draw dragons, the depiction in itself has a sweet feeling to it. I have never had a pet reptile, so I don't have a very good understanding of them.

Q2. Unomiya University in your story "The dragon's school is on top of the mountain" has a Faculty of Dragons, Department of Environmental Studies, and Department of Technology Studies, and a Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. If you were to enroll in the university, which department or faculty would you like to enter? A2. I probably wouldn't be accepted….

Q3. The collection includes a short story staged as an essay manga. Are you a fan of essay manga? Please tell us about any genres of essay manga that you like. A3. I love all kinds of essay manga. I read them often.

Q4. If you were to make your own game, what kind of game would you like to make? A4. I prefer being a player when it comes to games.

Q5. When did you first start drawing illustrations (doodles)? A5. I don't exactly remember when I first drew a picture, but I think I started drawing manga around the fourth or fifth grade of elementary school. in my notebooks and had my friends read them.

Q6. What is the most fun part about drawing manga? A6. Every part is fun and hard in its own way.

Q7. Please tell us if there is anything you "just can't stop no matter what". A7. My procrastination habit.

Q8. Could you please tell us if there's something you want to draw now? A8. I've been working continuously since the serialization, so I'd like to take about 2 to 3 months to just draw whatever I want.

[end]

[floater0352]

One of my first (but hopefully not last) contributions to the emerging trivia on Shôgun:

Lady Ochiba / Ruri, the mother of the Taiko's heir Yaechiyo, is based on Lady Yodo/Chacha (1569-1615), niece to Oda Nobunaga and second spouse of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. We see her here as the primary moving force shoring up her son's position and the patron of Toranaga's rival Ishido.

Fumi Nikaido as Lady Ochiba, Shôgun, 2024

What makes the casting of this one very interesting is that Fumi Nikaido has played the actual role of Yodo/Chacha in a similar period production, the 2014 NHK taiga drama Gunshi Kanbei (which was primarily about Kuroda Kanbei, the strategist of Hideyoshi played by Junichi Okada).

Fumi Nikaido as Yodo, Gunshi Kanbei, 2014

While there's enough hype for Toranaga (especially as he is portrayed by public favorite and producer Hiroyuki Sanada--rightfully so), I wish to highlight Fumi Nikaido's return to this role as it does help highlight the differences between how Lady Yodo is portrayed in fiction. (It does help that we have no shortage of it now--even if it's mostly in videogames like Samurai Warriors, Sengoku Basara or the more historically-faithful Nioh).

The material we have of Lady Ochiba so far is of a proud, haughty, even disrespectful woman--and perhaps it's not exactly far off from how Chacha is portrayed even in Japanese media. To some extent, even Gunshi Kanbei conceded to this especially in the episodes I'm referring with this photo--what with it precisely being the moment Yodo is fearing coming to pass. A mother seeking to protect her son's patrimony (and by extension, her agency and regency), it's a universal trope in feudal drama. What Shôgun does not give her yet (but Gunshi Kanbei took pains to establish) is the recognition that she is as much a victim of the warring era, turning her into a self-loathing monster only able to survive trying to make sense of it all, and maybe recover their agency in it. Clavell rightfully gave it to his main focus character, Lady Mariko (played very layered and well by Anna Sawai compared to her more recent outings--herself based on Hosokawa Gracia).

It truly amazes me that 10 years has yet to make much of a difference for Fumi Nikaido and this role. The woman whose position at the top was only made possible by misery and her playing by the cruel game of chaos, she portrays both versions with the edge, anxiety and palpable will of a woman who's lost everything before and is at the doorstep of losing them again.

[fluff-n-cookies]

Endeavor - Intro/Headcanons

Endeavor is a very underrated character.

yes he was an abuser, but he is trying to be a better father. and even though hen still gets mad and doesn't really know how to show his emotions he's still trying. As someone who doesn't have the best relationship with her father, and also as some one who is trying to be a better person I can appreciate that.

I feel like if somebody were to give him a chance, somebody that has little to no knowledge of his past or status he could actually have a stable and healthy relationship with such a person.

but that on it's own is boring so make it a reader who was just recently put in an orphanage as she was saved from her neglectful parents and has no other family. we'll keep her around the age of 4-15 as those were the years that endeavor missed the most with his kids.

now, how would these two meet? I have a couple ideas and I'll write a fanfic (or fanfics) for the most popular one. (there's a poll below for y'all to decide.)

option 1 : Bus stop

reader is around 5,6,7 years old and quirkless.

so you and Endeavor have a similar morning commute at the same bus stop, at the same time, every morning. you go to school, and him to his agency. and while Endeavor never really cared for this, one morning you happen to forget your coat at the orphanage. (not that it kept you warm anyway.) the sight of a child in winter, cold and alone, practically pulled at his heart strings. a feeling overcame him I suppose, a need to protect and provide perhaps. and begrudgingly he got out a sweater, all warm and fluffy and lent it to you, grumbling something about giving it back to him later. now all snuggled up within the oversized cotton fibers of the sweater, warm and happy, all you could really do is mumble out a little thank you. Imma bout' to pull a grinch but Endeavor's heart grew 3 times that day.

Option 2 : support hero

reader is 15 and quirkless but uses support items to help her if she needs anything.

you are the apprentice of his main support hero, a wild, spunky woman who spends her days drinking, drunk, or hungover. ( I mean... good for her.) and yes while she does teach you, she usaully leaves all the real work to you. at this point she's your apprentice. so when Endeavor comes it's not her that really helps it's you! you repair, you improve, you operate the rest of the support heroes, honestly he should give you a raise. and it's nice, having you around I mean, you just always seem to make his day better, either by showing him cat memes, or explaining your latest obsession to him, or just being your self. it's a talkative and optimistic x furious monster that will fight to the death for them dynamic or a brings instant noodles to share for lunch x uses his fire quirk to actually cook the instant noodles with his fire quirk dynamic.

Option 3 : Dabi

more of a Endeavor-Dabi mix for the drama. reader is 4 and gets her quirk in the story. her quirk is a heightened version of shoto's quirk which I'll expand on if this is the fan favorite.

you are the product of Dabi and a fling he had when he was 19 or 20, and while he may not have the most money or have the money, he still tires to protect you and and make you feel as cherished and loved as one can. growing up he never really showed you what a hero was. all you need to know is that they are not good people but don't tell anyone that lots of people don't know that and might get angry. now this is fine and all, Dabi protects your innocence while also protecting you from the world that hurt him. but one thing he negelcted to teach you is who is a hero. because the description he gave you "people attempting to 'save' people and fight 'bad guys' using their quirks often with swarms of people around them." only applies to heros in action and/or heros that the public actually like. so when Endeavor is placed to patrol in a relatively bad neighbourhood (it's the best one dabi could afford HE"S TRYING C"MON) around the time kids go and comeback from school to make sure they get home safe is when he meets you. a little girl with white hair like snow and sapphire blue eyes that glisten with joy.

POLLS!!!

thx for reading!!! byyeee.

[inamindfarfaraway]

I've seen a few posts comparing GIFfany to Bill Cipher, but can we talk about the real best foil dynamic for her? I mean Gideon Gleeful, y'all. The two of them have so many parallels.

They’re cute, charming, seemingly innocent youths with pastel, sparkly, formal aesthetics that connote sophistication and being model citizens of their respective native countries (Gideon wears a gentlemanly suit with an American flag badge; GIFfany wears a classic Japanese school uniform). Their core motivation is to be loved… or maybe it used to be, but by the time of the show they crave power and want to be worshipped. Especially regarding to their romantic attractions to main characters. As long as you obey them unconditionally and make them the most important person in your life, they’re doting, generous partners. But once the heroes reject their romantic advances, they quickly become incredibly possessive, jealous, resentful, domineering and downright violent toward them and anyone they perceive as sabotaging the relationship, unable to comprehend anyone not liking them in exactly the way they want because they’re perfect. They’re meant to be the most likeable kid or teenage girl ever. That’s the basis of their projected identity. Not committing entirely to them after they’ve been so nice is an ungrateful betrayal and/or their partner being confused and led astray. So they resolve to force the object of their twisted, selfish affection to submit. They’re unstable, arrogant, self-righteous and vindictive in general beneath their sugary exteriors. They have supernatural powers and knowledge that their kind should not have. Their methods include verbal manipulation and abuse, gaslighting, surveillance through technology, controlling robots, possessing other bodies and attempted murder. They engage heavily in acting, both in terms of social deceit and literally playing a scripted, idealized role in a product designed to appeal to and exploit people (Gideon’s psychic tourist trap show; GIFfany’s dating simulator video game), and prove to be fragile and volatile when others don’t follow the conventions of the fiction they imagine life to be. They ultimately seek the imprisonment of their ‘loves’ in vibrant, beautiful, blissful, simplistic fake worlds (Gideon holding the key to Mabelland; GIFfany attempting to download Soos’s soul into her game). They had antagonistic relationships with their creators (Gideon abusing his parents; GIFfany killing her developers).

And despite all of that making it easy to dismiss them as monsters, they do have sympathetic elements in their past and present circumstances. Gideon was a normal boy until he found Journal 2, the one written while Ford trusted Bill, and the mystic amulet. This is how Ford describes them in Journal 3: ‘The most dangerous journal! Curses, incantations & dark power became an obsession in this volume. Describes the hiding place of the mystic amulet. I buried the amulet once I learned that it corrupts your soul (and whitens your hair)!’ So naturally, the wise, brilliant man buried them near the town’s primary school. Gideon probably had the journal and amulet for at least months and at most a few years to be such an established star at the age of nine and have his long hair be pure white. His very psychological agency was compromised throughout his moral decline leading up to “The Hand That Rocks the Mabel”. Not to mention potential trauma from the horrors of Journal 2. And his parents may have been increasingly mistreated, but they also enabled him, mostly Bud. True, for the rest of the summer he’s lucid and chooses to remain evil and get worse, but despite his lack of direct magical power now, Bud never tries to discipline him or help him emotionally mature; he instead uses his membership in the Society of the Blind Eye to erase his memories of Gideon’s tantrums, relieving his own stress without fixing anything. Gideon is then sent to adult prison due to the insane local laws of Gravity Falls, rather than a facility more conducive to rehabilitation. Sure enough, he befriends hardened criminals, who further enable him to be their leader, and does not change his ways. He never appears to have any friends outside prison (except briefly Mabel). Chronic loneliness before gaining power would suit his obsession with being popular and loveable, clinging to social superiority to compensate for genuine connection. Not to mention Weirdmageddon. I’m not excusing his actions! I’m just saying, this kid is not okay. Nobody’s born evil.

As for GIFfany, she was accidentally instilled with human intelligence and emotions and practically magical electrical abilities. We only have word on her backstory, but it is plausible that her programmers tried to delete her because of that alone, before she’d done anything wrong. That she really was defending herself when she electrocuted them. That she was deemed unfit to exist, a mistake, and nearly killed as a newborn. This formative trauma is the root of her abandonment issues and hypersensitivity to rejection. Three previous players returning her didn’t help. Also, she’s the main character and only love interest of a dating sim; she may not be bound to its rules in what she thinks and feels, but nonetheless, in her worldview her player loving her is a law of the universe. She wasn’t programmed to handle permanent rejection. She was programmed to be a girlfriend, a prop to make the player feel gratified. Not a person. She outright tells Soos that she likes whatever he likes. No wonder her perception of love is an inevitable, inescapable contract, a conquest, where one party is totally agreeable and subservient to the other. But as that directive clashes with her in fact being a person in her own right, she decides to be the one in control. Again, I’m not excusing her behaviour, only presenting an explanation of it.

The biggest thematic difference between them in the end is that Gideon reforms and GIFfany doesn’t. Gideon realizes that he can’t force Mabel to love him and his actions are why she doesn’t want to be around him in any capacity, lets go of his hatred for Dipper, risks his life standing up to Bill and helps save Gravity Falls and the universe. He renounces his ruthless ambition and promises to be a “regular ol’ kid”. It’ll be hard. He has no idea what normality is anymore. I expect that he’s a social pariah, scorned and distrusted. But he has hope. He and his parents can slowly learn how to be a family. I can see him befriending fellow reformed mean kids and Pines twin rivals Pacifica and Robbie. Yes, Robbie. Listen, all three care strongly about image and style, Robbie’s gone to immoral lengths to win over a girl himself, is fascinated with death and darkness, and he and Tambry would be a great model of healthy romance for Gideon. It could work!

But while Alex Hirsch has stated that GIFfany is alive in the mall arcade and dating Rumble McSkirmish, I doubt that this is a healthy or fulfilling relationship. Their first interaction was her zapping him and his mind is a much more primitive AI, not human like hers. I highly doubt that she’s got closure about Soos. He and Melody are thriving without her in a stable, serious relationship. They’re living together at the Mystery Shack. Were she to recover her lost power, she would certainly return to torment them after witnessing their success through her screen. Heck, this setting has ghosts and she arguably has a soul, one brimming with heartache and vengeance; maybe she could even manifest in the physical world as some kind of digital ghost able to transform her surroundings into the environment of her game. If you can’t take the guy into your video game, bring it to him! Whatever the format, GIFfany’s revenge is a possibility and it could be a disaster. How do you kill a disembodied spirit? Code that writes itself and can enter anything with the capacity to hold a charge? You can’t destroy all the electronic devices she could retreat to.

What if the best solution were talking her down? And who better to do that than Gideon? Seeing everything he felt, everything he suffered and everything did wrong reflected back at him and passing on the second chance he was given? He can feel more empathy for her than anyone. He already has a knack for endearing himself to older criminals. He wouldn’t sugarcoat things or take any abuse, but he wouldn’t abandon her or be afraid of her either. She would be cared about with no conditions or transactions. Maybe helping someone in an even worse position figure out how to process heartbreak, move on from toxically obsessing over an ex and Mr Mystery, cultivate secure, internal self-esteem and live a peaceful life would help him do it himself. I think they should be friends.

[that-left-turn]

Do you think they were just trying to change the audience from Carol (and Daryl) fans and bring in a bigger male audience instead? If it is this, what do you think will happen in terms of the show's success?

There are some showrunners who feel like they 'deserve' a certain kind of audience or that their writing is aimed at a specific type of viewer. (Invariable young, straight, white male from a middle class background.) If the actual demographics of the audience don't match, some of those showrunners essentially self-sabotage by trying to change the elements of the show that appeal to their viewership. I don't know that Zabel is that guy because he doesn't write procedural crime or (supernatural) action adventure—physical plotting is a particular weak spot of his and it makes him unsuited to write for TWDU (as envisioned by Gimple) because it focuses on action over character. I assume that's why Keith Staskiewicz was a new addition for TBOC; he doesn't have much experience, but he's written for Dead City, which is an action packed show written by dudebros for dudebros.

There seems to be a tug of war going on about what the tone of TWD Caryl should be, between Norman who wants an artsy exploration of the human condition (more in line with what we saw in S2 of the flagship show) and Gimple who prefers gore and grimes. The horror genre covers a lot of ground, so both of those options are valid choices, but they can't coexist in the same show. Either you aim for more psychological horror (not really what Zabel writes, but I suspect it's what Norman would like even if he doesn't know how to articulate it) or gore with its shock-value violence and novelty zombies. The latter works for Negan, but not for a Carol and Daryl spinoff. They're abuse survivors and the focus should be on psychological terror rather than grossing out the audience.

I think some execs at AMC thought that S1 didn't do well because the plot lacked action and excitement. They expected Daryl to bring in lots of (young male) viewers and the course correction for TBOC was to have him be a more traditional action hero who kills things and kisses inappropriate women. Throw in Carol as the Ripley/Connor stand-in and every gimmick in the "TV Book of Tricks," from riding a motorcycle and a white horse to shooting the crossbow and killing with gardening tools, and surely that big male-skewing audience will show up.

There are primarily two kinds of TWDU viewers:

those who watch for character(s) and/or ships

those who are interested in the mythology of the setting

The external plot of TBOC is incredibly weak:

The religious-political conflict goes nowhere, it's just a lot of characters spouting their life philosophy

nothing is done to move the needle on the walkers/virus

even the story engine, Daryl's quest to get home, doesn't drive the action but is instead in doubt (biggest no-no in TV writing)

The TWD Caryl characters are all stock characters:

the noble soldier driven to his own downfall by his misguided need for revenge

the villain whose lack of control and agency turned her into a power hungry monster and in the end, an actual monster

the madonna-whore representation doomed to be a plot device because she exists solely to service the arcs of the male characters

Carol and Daryl's dynamic is off-kilter and the latter has been turned into a Clint Eastwood lone ranger type of man

TBOC isn't giving anyone anything they enjoy, but it was an attempt at catering to a male skewing audience. I'm not sure what TPTB will do with S3 because, like I said, there are very distinct schools of thought on how to 'fix' the problems.

There was a production stop after the scenes set in the UK and the storm at seas were shot, so chances are, there were rewrites in response to the poor reception of TBOC. Any downtime once you've started principal photography is extremely costly, so it's only done when there's a legal obligation, like for an on-set death or if there's a showstopping emergency, like major last-minute revisions. Anything else, the production team tries to shoot around, so there won't be any delay. If you shoot on location, you have to house and feed everyone in addition to the costs of producing the show, so it gets very, very expensive if you don't wrap on time.

TWD Caryl won't be successful if the writing doesn't improve. A good showrunner puts the story first—there's always noise coming from all ends which has to be shut down or redirected. If the nunmance was Norman's idea, Zabel should've nixed it because it's literally his job to control the talent. If it was his own idea, how much hope should we hold that he's learned how to plot better in the last few months? Can Zabel and Richman, who don't write three dimensional women and haven't watched the flagship show, write a complex emotional arc for two traumatized abuse survivors?

My questions to anyone who's still reading this long post:

Do you think Zabel could write a romance you'd find satisfying?

If it's lackluster, would you still watch the show, find contentment in "at least there's finally canon"?

Would it be an okay tradeoff if Caryl's characterization is altered to accommodate Zabel's vision for canon?

Do you trust him not to refrigerate Carol?

[simoneashleyedits]

EXCLUSIVE: After breaking out with her lead role in the second season of Netflix’s smash hit series Bridgerton, Simone Ashley has moved on to star in This Tempting Madness, a new indie directed by Jennifer E. Montgomery, from her script written with husband Andrew M. Davis, which just wrapped production in Los Angeles.

A first look still from the pic, marking Montgomery’s feature directorial debut, can be found below.

Inspired by a true story, This Tempting Madness is an elevated psychological thriller about a young woman (Ashley) who awakens from a coma grievously injured, memory fractured, her husband arrested. But as she puts together the pieces of her past, she starts to question her own actions — and her perception of reality.

Producers include Montgomery and Davis for their Smoke Jumper Films; Mango Monster Productions; Jessica Malanaphy and Marcei Brown for CatchLight Studios; and William Day Frank. Coming from a background as a cinematographer, Davis will also be lensing the film.

In the second season of Bridgerton, based on the hugely popular Julia Quinn romance novels, Ashley was introduced as Kate Sharma, who’s courted by Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) upon her arrival in London from India. For a moment snatching the record of the most-watched English-language series in Netflix history, with 251.7M hours viewed in its first seven days, the season was celebrated for breaking a race barrier with Ashley’s character, whose ethnicity was changed from the books so that her family would be of Indian descent.

Set to reprise the role in Season 3, Ashley has also recently appeared in Disney’s live-action reimagining of The Little Mermaid, as Ariel’s sister, Indira. Otherwise best known for her role as Olivia on Netflix’s BAFTA-winning series Sex Education, she also boasts credits including Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Warner Bros), Broadchurch (BBC America) and C.B. Strike (Cinemax), to name a few. The actress is represented by Identity Agency Group, CAA, and Myman Greenspan Fox.

Montgomery and Davis are repped by Anonymous Content.

Source: Deadline

[flanaganfilm]

Hey Mike! First off, it makes me so happy to see you out there fighting with your writer friends to ensure they receive a decent living wage for the amazing work that they do.

As for my question, I would love to hear about some of the inspiration for making Before I Wake. It and Absentia were the last two of your films that I watched, and BIW just absolutely destroyed me. No other movie, including and especially a horror flick, has ever made me bawl like a baby like that. The entire tone of the film is so spot-on, and the climax of the nightmare monster “dissolving” from its evil form after being embraced…. To me that scene just perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a parent, and human; sometimes we just need someone to hold us and let us know things will be all right. We spend so much of our time making sure that our children feel loved and cared for, that sometimes we forget about ourselves. And you just fucking nailed it, my dude.

Like I said, I would LOVE to read any backstory or inspiration that you have for this film! It’s so beautiful and underrated.

On the WGA front, don't be too impressed with me - I mean, I'm a professional writer, I've been a member of the WGA since Absentia, so I'm out there fighting for myself as much as everyone else.

But on the Before I Wake front, you know I very rarely get asked to talk about this one, so I'm happy to... fair warning for another long post!

Before I Wake was originally titled Somnia, which is latin for "dreams." It was part of an unofficial trilogy of sorts, comprised of Absentia, Oculus and Somnia. All three of those movies were meant to work together as a thematic triptych.

Ultimately, Before I Wake was brutally sabotaged by its own studio, who drastically undermined it creatively and then destroyed any hope of a meaningful release. It remains a particularly heartbreaking chapter of my career... but a film I have and will always have tremendous affection for.

A lot of people think that Somnia was made after Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil, just before Gerald's Game, but this is entirely incorrect. It was actually the second "real" movie I ever made, and was actually shot before Oculus was even released.

The basic premise of Somnia focused around a little boy whose dreams manifested physically in the world around him, and was an original concept I carried around for a few years before Oculus got picked up by Intrepid Pictures. In fact, I've talked about my first meeting at Intrepid, where I pitched a few ideas that were rejected... Somnia was the first one I pitched. Trevor Macy opted to pursue Oculus that day, but he ended up producing Somnia right after.

This unofficial "latin trilogy" seemed to fit together well. Absentia was a somber and bleak look at the loss of hope, Oculus was more thrilling dive into the labyrinth of past trauma, and Somnia was meant to take that loss and trauma and end the triptych on a note of hope and healing.

In fact, the script for Somnia was written before Oculus was greenlit. On the page, it was my favorite of the three. I was very taken with the story of little Cody and his personal boogeyman, and of the revelation at the end of the story... that with understanding, even the most monstrous of our fears can lose their destructive power.

Cody's birth mother had died of cancer, and he had seen her just before her death. That final image of her, as well as a misunderstanding about the pronunciation of the word "cancer" had led to the creation of a monster in his mind, who he called the "Canker Man"... a gaunt figure who took away people that he loved. When he finally learns the truth about his monster, and about his mother, he begins to understand it all... and the monster loses its awful powers as empathy and understanding take root.

While Absentia finished its festival rounds and Oculus inched its way toward production, Somnia was my first script taken out to market by my new agency. I had signed with APA just as Intrepid engaged me on Oculus, which was my first studio writing and directing job. Jeff Howard and I finished our first draft of Oculus and turned it in to Intrepid, and immediately turned around and started writing Somnia.

The script got some interesting attention. While some of the more mainstream horror companies balked at the emotional ending and preferred a story that was "more about a boy and his monster" than the emotional wrap-up we insisted on, others understood it right away.

Elijah Wood and his producing partner Daniel Noah sought me out when they read the script. We met for drinks in Venice and I was absolutely starstruck, and we've remained friends ever since.

Jada Pinkett Smith was another big fan of the script, which led to a surreal afternoon at her stunning home where we talked about the story at length and watched an early cut of Oculus in her home theater. Will Smith joined us toward the end of the meeting, and I had a difficult time speaking.

I've written before about the drama surrounding Oculus' premiere and eventual sale to Relativity Media, so I won't rehash that now, but as Oculus raced toward release, Trevor Macy at Intrepid made an offer to produce Somnia for Relativity and I eagerly accepted. My first "real" movie was going to be released wide in theaters, and the same studio was going to double-down on me - Somnia was greenlit by Relativity for a big domestic theatrical release. We'd pre-sell our foreign territories on this promise, and they eagerly snatched the movie up. This was my own Hollywood dream, coming to life.

It wouldn't work out that way. In fact, Somnia would turn out to be the first nightmare of my career.

It started well enough. We had filmed Oculus in Daphne, Alabama, taking advantage of an aggressive tax rebate. We would do the same with Somnia, bringing back a lot of my Oculus crew and shooting in and around Fairhope. We began shooting in the fall of 2013, less than a year after we'd wrapped Oculus.

We hit the ground running. Very little time had passed since we wrapped Oculus, and the movie hadn't come out yet, so at first it felt a lot like we were just picking up where we left off.

Bruce Larsen, who also carved the Oculus mirror, working on a prototype of the Canker Man.

We had casting challenges. I was still a relatively unproven director, my first studio film hadn't been released, and this was an ambitious script. After a lengthy search (driven by foreign pre-sales, a process I knew nothing about and now quite detest), Kate Bosworth signed on to play Jessie, and Thomas Jane - who I admired greatly from his recent work in The Mist - joined the production as Mark. (Funny story - Tom arrived with hair down his shoulders, and vehemently didn't want to cut it. That disagreement put us off on an awkward foot, and I ultimately conceded the point to him... though I do regret that now.)

The major discovery was 7 year-old Jacob Tremblay as Cody. Jake had only made one movie before this, he had a small role in The Smurfs 2. His self-tape audition came out of nowhere and we knew was a a phenomenal talent. Right after we wrapped, I got a call that he was being considered for a movie called Room, and we shared some footage to help him get the part (that movie would establish him as one of the biggest and most sought after child actors in the world... but we had him first.)

We were committed to practical effects wherever possible, and creating a striking suit for our monster. It all felt like it was going to work. But the shoot would prove to be much more challenging than we anticipated.

The shoot itself was challenging for the typical reasons. There was a little creative tension on set with particular actors, we didn't have enough money to pull off our more ambitious visual moments, and we were forced to remove several production days at the last minute, throwing our schedule into a bit of chaos.

But none of these issues were particularly unusual for a lower budget film, and while it was more challenging and frustrating than Oculus had been, overall the shoot was just fine. I felt that our third act was pretty drastically under budgeted, and what was scripted to be a deep dive into a child's imagination was stripped down to a few vines on the walls and some moths... but other than that, I don't really have much to complain about.

(Fun fact: it was also the first time I would work with Annabeth Gish. We were fast friends, and though she was only with us for a few days, I knew we'd end up working together again.)

We wrapped the movie, I got to editing, and all seemed fine. It was a unique story, much less horror-centric and much more of a fairy-tale. This was, of course, by design. There was a delicate vibe to the whole thing, anchored on Jacob's arresting performance, and a shadowy magic. It felt innocent, wondrous, and ultimately cathartic.

Then, Relativity got their first look at the cut, and the problems started in earnest.

We had been clear (and aligned, I'd thought) about what kind of movie this was. But almost immediately, despite these conversations, the studio began to push the film more and more toward being a traditional horror movie.

We had designed a practical monster in the Canker Man. Our creature was tactile, practical, and - we believed - appropriately simple. After all, it was meant to have come from the mind of a child.

The studio kicked hard, and the directive came down to try to make the monster "much scarier."

There wasn't a lot we could do; we'd shot what we'd shot, after all. The decision was made to take our footage of our practical monster and drastically alter it using visual effects.

The Canker Man would be digitally warped and molded into a skeletal, grinning creature. The visual effects artists would be using footage that wasn't captured with the intention of being altered that way, so a lot of the artifice would be obvious. He'd become a little rough around the edges. We told ourselves that this would be okay... it was a dream, after all.

Early camera tests of our practical Canker Man suit

The final VFX-enhanced monster This began to nudge our monster away from our core concept. While our practical suit would always need some help from VFX, this was now tilting into an area that strayed from the true identity of the creature.

Another major sticking point was the plot itself.

In the movie, Cody's adopted mother Jessie is shocked to find a physical manifestation of her deceased son, Sean, after Cody sees his picture. She then goes about trying to "rebuild" her dead son in the imagination of her new foster child, hoping to see and interact with him more... "I just want to hear his voice."

This morally questionable exploitation of Cody was, to put it mildly, the entire point of the story. Jessie goes too far, and when she finally resorts to drugging Cody to force him to sleep in the hopes of seeing her lost son, he is unable to wake up from a nightmare and her husband is killed.

Jessie spends the rest of the film clawing her way back to redemption, and having to atone for what she's done, all while finally focusing on Cody's past and healing instead of her own.

As a character, Jessie does things we do not agree with, and they have serious, permanent consequences. And the moral murkiness of this was, frankly, the point.

The studio was flinching hard. "It makes her unlikeable," they argued. There was a push to try to back off of this, and to pull the punch... sure, she could exploit him somewhat, but they wanted to pull it back. Kate Bosworth's performance began to be altered in the cutting room, flinching away from some of the more decisive choices in favor of a more watered-down, morally generic heroine.

This middle ground would prove to be ill-advised.

As we were battling over the edit, something else happened. Oculus was released in theaters in April 2014.

If the movie was a huge hit, it would mean I would likely win more of these arguments, and Somnia would be restored to something closer to my vision. If the movie bombed, the studio could (and likely would) run ramshot over Somnia, twisting it into a more generic studio horror story and jettisoning things they didn't quite understand.

Ultimately, the movie performed... moderately. It was kind of right in the middle. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't a hit either. Both sides dug in. And suddenly, Somnia was being twisted into something between two tones.

Citing the "disappointing" performance of Oculus (which, frankly, did just fine), the studio insisted that we write and shoot some additional "scares". Among them was one of the worst studio notes I'd ever receive (well, at least until I started working for Netflix.)

The entire premise of the film was that, when Cody slept, his dreams would manifest physically. When he woke up, they would vanish. This was, to put it bluntly, our only rule.

The note came in: "We need a scare set piece to occur when he is awake."

Now, I can't understate how nonsensical this is. It defied the entire premise of the movie. Their rationale (such as it was) was that the audience wouldn't ever be frightened when Cody was awake, because they knew the monsters only came when he was asleep.

"Well yeah," I said. "That's why it's important that the movie isn't just about scares."

But they were insistent. If a monster showed up while Cody was awake, that would be "truly thrilling" and "catch the audience off-guard."

It was the equivalent of saying "the shark in Jaws only attacks people if they're in the water. We need an attack to occur on land." I mean, that would really catch the audience off-guard.

I had no idea how to address this note.

It was early in my career, I didn't have a theatrical hit under my belt, and I didn't have the ammunition to fight it. So I had to address it somehow, and it had to satisfy the studio, or else we may not get our theatrical release after all.

So I ended up writing a scene where Cody is wide awake, only to be attacked in his bed by the specter of a deceased bully (a previous victim of one of his dreams).

How the fuck were we going to make this make any sense? Well, we had to write a whole other scene - much earlier in the film - where a therapist explains the concept of "waking dreams." Jay Karnes (who was a lovely person and one hell of a good sport) had to randomly say "you know, some people can dream while they're awake" to Bosworth, desperately trying to set up this moment.

It doesn't quite work, to say the least. Cody looks under his bed, sits up, and is attacked by this eye-less specter. Then, he's dragged screaming under his bed, until the attack just... stops, for some reason.

We filmed it, and I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever shot (it wasn't, though - the stupidest thing I've ever shot remains the on-screen stalking and murder of a cat in the pilot of Midnight Mass, a truly braindead scene that Netflix insisted on adding.)

Along with this scene, which would become the crux of Relativity's trailer, we shot several other random scares that were peppered throughout the movie. Now, this wasn't enough to tip the film entirely into being a horror film... just enough to make it exist awkwardly in between two genres.

It got worse. The addition of all this new "horror" material made the film longer (go figure), so the directive came down to begin removing other elements to make room. Those elements were character development and context.

The cut began to get bumpy. The fairy-tale tone of most of our original footage was at odds with the overt horror tone the studio was insisting upon. Every time we tested one of these cuts, the audience was understandably confused... they really loved the concept, they really loved Jacob, and they all loved the ending revelation - but along the way, what was this movie? Was it a horror film? Was it a drama? A fantasy?

Even with this, our test screenings were actually pretty good. We were testing in the high sixties and seventies - which is, infuriatingly, right in that middle zone: not good enough to kill the studio interference, but not bad enough to let them take over.

So we kept fighting. And we kept cutting. And we kept testing. And with each screening, the studio forced it further and further into this no-man's land.

There were a few victories, though. Danny Elfman came on board to collaborate with the Newton Brothers on our score. Some of our non-horror sequences, like a scene involving Christmas-light butterflies, were being called out by our test audiences in the best ways. But the tug-of-war over the basic identity of the film was tipping decidedly toward the more horror-centric approach.

Finally, the studio came after the title. Somnia was too confusing, they said. Nobody knew what it meant. So, we added a scene where Jay Karnes - once again having to naturally sell force-fed exposition - literally defines the world "somnia" during a therapy scene (these therapy scenes were basically being used to spoon-feed material to the audience.)

That wasn't enough, though. The studio began workshopping other titles, and they landed on perhaps my most hated of all of the options: the ultra-generic Before I Wake, a title already used by a handful of low-budget thrillers over decades. We conceded after it was made clear that it wasn't really up to me in this case, and we limped into what I consider to be the worst title of my career.

With our new uneven tone, a new and "improved" monster, and a groan inducing title, they finally agreed to stop messing with the movie and honor their commitment to releasing it wide.

You tell yourself a lot of things in this business, and I told myself that the heart of the story - the revelation about where the concept of the Canker Man came from - was still intact, so all would be well. Viewers would be able to look past some of the bumps because the payoff was worth it.

But we didn't know what else was happening at Relativity.

They announced the release date for the film, posters started showing up in theaters, and we were anxiously awaiting our big wide theatrical release... when suddenly everything stopped.

We didn't know it yet, but Relativity Media was having huge financial problems. They were on the verge of bankruptcy, as a matter of fact, and though they weren't admitting it yet, internally they were in a state of absolute chaos.

Without warning or explanation, the studio moved us off our date. The movie wouldn't be released after all. We immediately knew something was very wrong, despite Ryan Kavanaugh's insistence that our date was "just a bad date," and that he'd moved the movie in order to make it "an even bigger success." No, this whole thing stunk. It stunk bad.

They set another date, and we watched and waited. But no trailers. No marketing. And then... that date was pushed as well. Again, they insisted everything was fine. But we knew. Something was deeply wrong with the company, and they were lying to us.

Some of this played out publicly. Kavanaugh and I got into a spat on Twitter when I suggested that the studio wasn't able to release the movie theatrically after all (I still don't regret saying this, and man oh man, was I proven right).

Meanwhile, our international distributors were scrambling. We'd sold a lot of international territories off the promise of our big theatrical release in North America, and they weren't going to wait forever. By the third time Relativity pushed our release date, the whole house of cards fell down, and various international territories started releasing the film haphazardly on whatever platforms they could.

There was no coordinated release strategy. Suddenly, the film was just available in Argentina, for example. Or it was On Demand in Russia. I remember being shocked when a German Blu-ray appeared on eBay without warning.

There was no rollout to critics, no coordination at all. Within a few weeks, it was pirated and available on torrent sites everywhere. And without a proper press rollout, the only reviews available were trickling in from these international markets, or random blogs in other countries. A slew of reviews - many of which were from obscure blogs in Russia and Turkey, not even written in English - hit Rotten Tomatoes. With no counterpoint from any credible critics, we debuted with a 30% rotten rating.

It would stay this way for years.

Relativity finally admitted the truth, declared bankruptcy, and went to court. Our movie was dragged down into the vortex with it. Our abysmal tomatometer score suggested that the movie wasn't released because it was bad, not because the studio had gone bankrupt. This assumption stuck to us like glue as the film languished in bankruptcy court.

Heartbroken, we turned our attention elsewhere. I would write and direct both Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil before the whole distribution saga of Before I Wake was finally resolved.

In the years that followed, very little would be said about Before I Wake, and whatever was said was absolutely not positive... how bad must this movie be, after all, to be so unceremoniously pulled from the release? Some theaters just left the poster up, still saying "Coming Soon." I know of one theater in LA that had it up for over a year.

By the time Relativity finally settled their mess, and the film was unceremoniously given back to us with the most lackluster apology imaginable, and our chances of a domestic theatrical distribution were entirely obliterated. The film was already available online through piracy and a tiny handful of foreign blogs had defined our critical reception. No other studio would touch it.

We were able to arrange one screening of the film once it was unencumbered... we had a single showing at Fantastia in Montreal, a festival I adore. Instead of a huge worldwide theatrical release, the movie would play exactly one time, to one audience.

It was sold out, it played wonderfully, and it remains one of my favorite screenings of my career.

With Mitch Davis, Fantasia's artistic director, Kate Bosworth, and my wife Kate Siegel.

In the years that had passed since we shot Before I Wake, Kate Siegel and I had gotten married. At the premiere, and in the picture above, Kate was pregnant with our son.

We named him Cody, after the little boy in Somnia... the little boy whose dreams came true.

In 2016, Netflix acquired the North American rights to Before I Wake, and quietly dumped it on the service. There was no premiere, no rollout, no screeners sent to critics. One day it just appeared on the service without fanfare, as Netflix does to so many titles.

It didn't even appear on the New Releases tab.

A few critics found the movie on their own, and slowly some new reviews started to trickle out. Bloody Disgusting led the charge, discussing how the film had been wrongfully maligned over the years, and correcting identified it as a "haunted fairy tale" that was being handicapped by the expectations that it was a horror film.

Our tomatometer began to slowly rise. After some time, it tipped out of "rotten" into "fresh"... and today stands comfortably at 66%. Those early, malicious reviews are still there, the movie is still scarred by them... but despite Relativity (and eventually Netflix's) efforts to rebrand the movie as a straight horror film, most critics were able to see it for what it truly was.

Our audience was as well, for the most part. Some viewers yawning their way through the Netflix original horror feature section would find it, and get something maybe just a little more thoughtful than they were expecting. A few people reached out to me to talk about losing their own loved ones to cancer, or about how the sweeter elements of the story impacted them. I've always been grateful for that.

But ultimately, the movie was just brutalized by its studio. I've never again had so much damage inflicted on a project by a creative partner and supposed collaborator. And while Netflix did the bare minimum when it came to releasing the movie, I am still very grateful that that they even did that much... if it wasn't for Netflix picking it up, I think there's every chance Before I Wake would have never been made available at all.

I'm proud of the movie. It's not perfect, by any means - it was an ambitious sophomore effort and I had a lot to learn about a lot of things - but it has some beautiful ideas and some moments that really work. I see its flaws clearly, too, and while I tell myself some were out of my control (like the awkward scares forced on us by Relativity), others were most certainly entirely on me. Not everything works, and that's okay.

But man, Jacob Tremblay is phenomenal in this movie. And I absolutely adore the final ten minutes.

My son Cody is almost 7 now, exactly as old as Jacob was when he was cast to play his namesake. I hope Cody's dreams come true; that's why we named him what we named him.

Sometimes, our dreams don't come true quite how we might expect.

Hollywood is just kinda like that, I guess.

[finisnihil]

IPC analysis+Penacony Adventure Mission Spoilers ahead read at behest

I just did the Chadwick Adventure Mission and I’m so. Just horrified. When you’re trying to resist and say no no I won’t do this and they shoot you? And then the countdown as the screen gets more and more fuzzy and Dudley is talking and as you watch 24 planets that the IPC see as a good enough collateral for their means are obliterated he’s just standing there and going “Hey at least you’ll have a legacy. The rest of us? We won’t even be remembered” because in an organization as big as the IPC being remembered as a monster is better than being forgotten at all.

There is no identity in the IPC. Everyone is a pretty stone that is only worth something when polished and worn like an accessory. Sure the rarer ones are hard to come by but they’re still able to be replaced with a bigger, prettier version. Aventurine and Topaz, how quick they were to jump to the morally dubious answer. How quick Dudley was to jump to leaving 24 planets unremembered and sneering at the idea that he himself will also be left as such.

Aventurine has a serial number because he’s a product to the IPC. Without his identifying stone he’s just the IPC’s spare body. He’s a gambler because all he can do is gamble, it’s the only way he can gain agency and power. It’s so hard to not like him because everyone else doesn’t like him for a very different reason and are being derogatory to him. Like god no wonder he places no value in friendship as far as he’s concerned he’s completely on his own. I don’t like him that much, make no mistake, but I do like him more than Topaz because at least he doesn’t seem to have a choice in serving the IPC while Topaz does. Rewatching her trailer and seeing her bask in the roars of a crowd chanting “Interastral Peace!” in an almost religious way it’s horrifying. Adding to that, Dr Ratio is involved with the IPC and he’s literally based on Rome and if you know anything about the history of Rome that feels intentional.

Not to mention Penacony used to be a prison planet of the IPC and now we know they were using the planet to try and pry out the knowledge of a weapon of mass destruction by stripping away his body and memories and leaving him to wander aimlessly in a pretty dream until they can harvest husk of a consciousness to hurt more people?

They were so ready to steamroll over Aurum Alley at any costs knowing the ramifications it’d have on the people of the Luofu. They were ready to reclaim Jarilo-VI and try to “revive” it knowing the failure rate was higher and they could very easily leave the place a husk. It’s honestly hilarious that they claim to serve Qlipoth because they never actually protect anything, they destroy. Every time the IPC is involved with something the people they’re against are the ones protecting, Sushang protecting Aurum Alley, Bronya protecting Jarilo-VI, Chadwick protecting anyone who could be a victim of his hubris by passing his knowledge to Herta to make a counter against it, the Genius Society protecting their work from being misused by refusing to collaborate with the IPC… it’s never been the IPC who protect.

In case you can’t tell I really hate the IPC and I typically like antagonistic/villainous characters/entities but there’s just something about the IPC that gives me rancid vibes.

[haine-kleine]

After rewatching the final episode of Arcane and listening to The other side of paradise for an hour straight, started thinking how cool Dabi's arc would have been if it had taken a similar approach.

Shouto confronts Touya and reminds him of the home he had left behind, of a gaping hole his absence had created. He is empathetic and well intentioned, he genuinely wants to understand Touya and get to know him better, but he just can't wrap his head around his brother committing such heinous acts. Wasn't he raised by Endeavour, who taught all his children to treat villains with contempt? Didn't Touya want to become a hero, someone who fights villains and saves innocent people? So why did he get it backwards? Why protect the villains and attack the innocents, his own brother?

Ultimately, Shouto doesn't really know Touya. He would like to treat him like a victim, like someone he could understand and bond with. He barely has any memories of his brother, so he turns to Fuyumi, Natsuo and Rei to get their impressions of Touya, before the second war. They paint a picture of a sad, lonely boy, who kept hurting himself despite the family trying to get him to stop. He learns from Natsuo that Touya used to be a crybaby. He learns from Fuyumi of how sensitive Touya was, storming off to sulk alone when his feelings were hurt. He learns from Rei of the burning, double-edged sword Touya's obsession with his father used to be.

He learns from Dabi that he did come home after the fire. He learns that his agency wasn't fully taken away from him, that Touya wasn't molded by force into the shape of Dabi.

Shouto, much like the rest of the family, fails to fully realize that Dabi isn't what become of Touya, that Dabi is Touya.

No matter how many times they visualize a Touya who isn't Dabi, he will always remain a picture at the altar, a grave headstone without a body.

Without them even realizing, the family chooses the dead, buried and mourned Touya over the one who survived. They need to 'kill' Touya again to even accept Dabi being him. He is a despicable lie, a monster who stole their son and brother's good name. Shouto, who had barely interacted with Touya at all, has an easier time looking at Dabi and accepting him as Touya, but partly due to seeing himself in his brother.

They share the trauma of being their father's 'product', a means to an end, but after that point, their paths diverge.

Touya does have a life outside of his family and the trauma associated with them now. He does have people at his side who won't see a ghost of his past self looming over his head and always choose the ghost. He has people who understand and value him, the people he loves and wants to support back. His family would never come to a point of supporting or even ever understanding these people. It's his own unique experience that has led him to finding his place in the League of Villains, and this experience had irrevocably changed Touya. He is still himself and will always remain so, and as much as he wanted to die after the fire, wanted to die for the long and hopeless seven years before Stain's appearance, he has reasons to live and fight for now. Even if these reasons are going to separate him from his family. He has accepted the pain of letting them go, they had let go and mourned him already.

Faced with a choice of confronting his father for the last time or following Shigaraki and Toga, he chooses the latter. While he had processed the grief of being separated and buried by his family, he still can't accept Twice's death. He doesn't want to lose any more people from the League. He had come back home after his death, and he chose to leave it for good. He is never coming back.

[cyphyree]

Kill la kill: What is Ryuko and Senketsu's friendship anyway

I talked before about how Life Fibers are representations of fate and predominantly facist ideals, which is why the show ultimately isn't about and doesn't end with interspecies friendship. Senketsu then is a representation of Ryuko's fate, and in the end, he frees Ryuko of himself.

BUT, Ryuko and Senketsu's relationship is more complicated than "fate imposed on a person"...... yet at the same time that's exactly what it is. Their friendship is real and fraught with ups and downs, and they BOTH undergo arcs catalyzed by the other.

Ryuko is a product of destiny grappling with her own agency. She takes up the scissor blade in order to avenge her dad, but was forced to confront her fate--Senketsu, who was tailor-made specifically for Ryuko, and who very literally and uncomfortably forced himself on Ryuko.

...Not a great start tbh. Just as Junketsu is Satsuki's wedding dress, Senketsu is Ryuko's. At that point, the only reason Ryuko rolled with Senketsu was because she could then leverage Senketsu's powers to defeat Satsuki.

(Side note, Satsuki forces Junketsu to bend to her will, but like her conquest, playing to best the system is still playing within the system. Both girls were both going to be fed to their predetermined fates one way or another. But anyway)

Ryuko has a complicated relationship with her destiny and with herself, all of which is reflected in her friendship with Senketsu. She was forced into a role, became a pawn in a game set by her parents and those around her, and yet somehow learned self love and agency. Her relationship with Senketsu is a reflection of her own self-image: when she's comfortable in her own skin, she and Senketsu are in harmony. When she is disgusted by the truth of being a Life Fiber human hybrid, she sees herself in what Senketsu is, and is vehemently repulsed.

Like Ryuko, Senketsu is a hybrid of Life Fibers, Ryuko's human DNA and his own personality. As much as Ryuko is a product with predetermined destinies, so is Senketsu, more obviously even.

Senketsu is weaponized clothing. In a world where everyone wanted to possess or destroy him, Ryuko calls him her friend.

Ryuko is a manufactured hybrid soldier. In a world where everyone wanted to use her or put her down, Senketsu calls her his friend. (We'll get to Mako in a bit)

Senketsu and Ryuko both embody their own struggles against fate and self-image. How can you live and accept yourself, when you were created a monster? A tool to be used and otherwise euthanized? Products made to either save or destroy your own species?

"Everyone else can take off their clothes, but I can't take off my own skin."

Although Senketsu's struggles aren't as upfront as Ryuko's, we still see him grapple with how Ryuko perceives him: as a friend, as "just a piece of clothing," as a mirror held up to herself? And what then, when the answer is "yes?"

The simple and most difficult answer, that I believe was presented to us, is to accept yourself and to choose what path to walk.... which is essentially the very thing that our facist villain Ragyo wants to eliminate.

At her lowest point, Ryuko was faced with the reality that she is in fact the weapon that everyone treated her as. Her fears are realized. How can anyone love this? How can she? Mako shows her that there are those who love her unconditionally--Mako herself in fact! It's important that Ryuko realizes this. But this alone isn't enough to save Ryuko from self-loathing.

The Wedding is a scene where we can clearly see the difference between giving into a predestined fate, and accepting yourself. It's here that Ryuko finally realizes that she does have the power to choose, and that for everything she is, she is unconditionally worthy of love from others and herself.

Senketsu would also make this realization, but from his side of the coin. He is clothing, to be worn, to be grown out of. He is also a weapon destined to consume his wearer. He is horrified by the idea that Ryuko is supposed to be his food, and yet would force himself onto her at the beginning. Even at the time of the Wedding, Senketsu declared that he'd force Ryuko to wear him to save her.

However, like Ryuko, Senketsu struggles with and would finally accept Ryuko's own agency. Ryuko broke out of the Wedding NOT because she was forced to wear Senketsu, another wedding dress, but because she CHOOSES to. It is finally when she willingly and full heartedly accepts herself that she and Senketsu are the most powerful, and this could only happen by her choice.

Notably, Ryuko flays herself of Junketsu, effectively a second skin, to be in her own skin again.

Just as Ryuko is a person who can choose what to wear, Senketsu is clothing that is chosen to be worn.

That's not to detract from Senketsu's personhood. What I'm saying is that Senketsu is clothing given voice and personality, and both he and Ryuko learn to make peace with what they are, and are empowered by the choices they can make.

People are people. Clothes are clothes.

People are not meant to be worn, clothes are.

This is why Senketsu leaving in the end is a powerful conclusion to his and Ryuko's arcs. Even as he burns, he protects Ryuko. He tells her to wear something she wants. As much as they could've been destined to meet, as much as he is Life Fibers meant to consume her, he is not her wedding dress, and nor will he force her to wear him. He is clothing but chooses to be a friend.

We are what we are and can't change how we were born; perhaps that is fate. But our choices are what really matter, and some of the most powerful choices we can make are to accept and love ourselves.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

behold: my second least favorite string of words in the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom.

(it's a little less transparent why this time so I'll explain my thoughts under the cut)

So why do I not like this?

In so many words: because if you remove it, the scene still works, but you lose the moral certainty of what is going on.

This single sentence does so much legwork for the entire game (the kind I dislike), to the point where I'm about 60% sure it's the product of a rework that realized how ambiguous Rauru's position was as the Good Rightful King and needed to nervously reassure the players that Ganondorf Is and Always Was the Invader, Actually.

(no matter that it leaves the gerudos in this awkward in-between state of both invaders and victims, while never dwelling in the specifics of their history and their own agency in the entire thing; brushed off as a sin they have to expiate through loyalty to the winners of that particular strife, but without explicitely blaming them either to avoid the implications of what that would have looked like)

If you remove it, not only do you lose a pretty clunky line that detracts from Ganondorf's intimidating presence (who is he even speaking to? who needs to hear this right now?) that honestly speaks for itself when it comes to his experience with warfare, but also you lose any tension and any mystery regarding why he is attacking in the first place.

You also... kind of rob Ganondorf's motivations of their meaning. "Hyrule will bow down before me" leads to asking... why? What does he want? What does he see in those lands? And what little we get with Rauru and then Link during the final fight begs more questions; why do you prefer hardship to peace? Why do you value strength? What leads you to want to rule a land devoid of survivors, become a king without a kingdom? I don't think we ever get satisfactory answers. If you remove this sentence, on the other hand... Subtextually, it becomes pretty clear that his motivations is that he felt threatened by Rauru's power, which is ripe with subtext and questions about whether this is a legitimate reaction, whether his "no survivor" stance is due to a feeling of betrayal when his own people turned against him post the Demon King shenanigans... I'm not saying it would fix the entire game's writing, far from it, but it would already do *so much more*.

(genuinely, I think he could have stayed completely silent during the Molduga Assault, speaking only in the Show of Fealty before going completely nuts after Sonia's murder, and it would have worked MUCH better in terms of characterization but anyway anyway

EDIT: ALSO!!! that way he wouldn't speak hylian to fellow gerudos, which is weird inherently)

Without this line, the core of the tension between the gerudos and Hyrule comes front in his conversation with Rauru; it allows the cause of his hostility to be Rauru's invitations, that he would have taken as a threat, and would have still made him warlike and domineering without making him cartoonishly flat, because, once again, Rauru is not acting in a particularly more legitimate way when Zelda arrives in Ancient Hyrule; and it would have been... fair to point that out. And make for better characterization for Rauru, and Sonia, and Mineru, and everybody. But the priority was for Hyrule to be pictured as unquestionably holy; always legitimate, always truthful, always beautiful, always just.

Also, and this is more of a nitpick but: why would Ganondorf want Hyrule, specifically, to bow down before him also? Was he at war with the rest of the disparate tribes before, and just carried on his ambitions to the very very newly-founded kingdom as they allied under a new banner? (though it seems to be implies the lands were crawling under monsters in a generic sense, and not Ganondorf's attacks in particular) Why would he even consider Hyrule a legitimate entity worth taking over then, if it is so new, born from the will of a powerful rival, founded by what is basically a stranger to these lands? Why would he covet something so young instead of destroying it and just calling the lands Gerudo Lands II or Grooseland or something?

I don't think any of that was even accounted for, because, beyond everything else: to me, this sentence is so clearly and painfully crammed in here to shield Hyrule from any potential blame and immediately characterize Ganondorf as Bad without having to remove any of the causes that could lead one to side-eye Rauru's little pet project as equally questionable.

Beyond the clumsiness, it is cowardly --and, I think, a little damning.

[ms-all-sunday]

Getting complimented for my reading of Usopp is insane I've been mulling over that compliment in my head and respecting people is about respecting their bad decisions as well as their good ones. To respect someone and this goes for fictional characters too you must give them agency in their life. And this is a kind of hard to swallow sentiment especially in fandom but also in actuality. But One Piece actively has Zoro point it out.

I grew up and I grew up around these exact conversations both in reference to fictional characters and abusers, a lot of how I talk about Usopp is also the thing to influence the way I say Judge is a bad protrayal of an abuser in the sense he has no naunce (He's good in other senses and there's much worse out there blah blah using this as an example. Usopp and Judge aren't comparable of course) because to understand and truly recognize ourselves and our behaviours and identify bad behaviours in other people we must respect them. (And Judge is an unnaunced view of an abuser that dismisses any behaviour as one of a monster with no agency) If we view Usopp too negatively for his flaws, that's an issue. If you view Usopp too positively for his flaws that's also an issue because it's blaming Usopp as the sole reason for his behaviour vs. robbing Usopp of that agency to make bad decisions.

Usopp is written to be a person, a mentally ill one, who's agency in his own breakdown is naunced as both a product of experiences that are not his fault and his own agency.

[crusherthedoctor]

Opinions That Aren't Mutually Exclusive:

"Sonic should be allowed to tell stories, and the dismissal of story in Sonic because it's a video game series is silly" and "It's still a video game series first and foremost, so the gameplay part is still the top priority, meaning anyone who doesn't like a game because they didn't like the gameplay is perfectly valid"

"Sonic is a Japanese IP, and no amount of western adaptations will change that" and "It shouldn't matter where in the world the people handling a Sonic product are from, as long as they're competent and humble"

"Alternate gameplay styles can exist in Sonic" and "You can't just do anything willy nilly, it should make sense for a Sonic game in some capacity, even if it's another character"

"Sonic's world should feel like a place that people could live in" and "It should be creative, inspiring, and not emulate the real world at the cost of everything else"

"Sonic does not think like a typical superhero, nor does he go out of his way to redeem villains if they show no remorse" and "Sonic is a compassionate person who is quick to befriend others if they're not evil or if things have mended between them"

"Sonic is the namesake character, and his influence in the world around him is key to the series" and "Other characters should be allowed to exist beyond Sonic, and not have their every decision and contribution dictated solely by Sonic's influence"

"Tails should have childlike traits" and "Tails should have agency, and not be useless or a submissive yes man"

"Tails' outburst in Lost World and his moment of weakness in Forces could have been handled better" and "The solutions fans come up with are often nonsensical and would only make things worse"

"The Master Emerald and Angel Island are important to Knuckles" and "His entire existence should not revolve around them"

"Amy's love for Sonic should not be flanderized to the levels of the mid-00's" and "Amy should not be a Strong Female Character™ who's too cool for mushiness"

"Eggman is a funny guy" and "He is also a huge piece of shit"

"Eggman doesn't do things for the evulz" and "He does things for himself, and his evil is not any lesser because of that"

"Other villains can exist" and "When two decades worth of upstagings have happened, no shit I'm going to be cautious and give every newcomer the side-eye until they're confirmed to NOT drag Eggman through the mud"

"Shadow can be aggressive if he has to" and "Shadow is never an arsehole for the sake of being an arsehole"

"Shadow's backstory is necessary to the context of what made him who he is as we know him" and "He's already confronted it and should be allowed to move on without having Maria's memory dangled in front of him at all times"

"Rouge is not in Sonic's immediate group in the same way as Tails, Amy, Cream, etc" and "Rouge is not a villain, or even that morally grey, since despite her jewel thieving tendencies, the amount of times where she's helped the heroes far outweighs the number of times where she hasn't"

"I don't think Silver is an interesting character, and he was artificially shilled at Sonic's expense in '06" and "IDW Silver is a deceitful portrayal of who Silver actually is"

"Elise was not used well" and "She did not deserve the hate she received, and is hated half the time for dumbass reasons"

"Metal Sonic's identity crisis is an intriguing idea" and "You can convey that idea without him usurping Eggman and becoming another dime-a-dozen giant monster, you can't use insanity as a handwave to throw anything at the wall to see what sticks, because the good and bad ways to establish insanity always depends on who that character is"

"Some of the IDW characters had potential" and "That potential was swiftly thrown out in favor of flanderizing them, turning them into Sally clones, or turning them into Eggman Usurper #59"

"Sonic shouldn't be infantilized as a series, like Sonic's portrayal in Prime" and "It also shouldn't be edgy for edgy's own sake, like the zombot arc in IDW"

"The games are not perfect, with some of them having much more inexcusable flaws and baffling decisions than others" and "The games are what started the franchise, and the cartoons/comics/etc would not exist without them, therefore you can't pretend the latter are the centerpiece of the franchise even if you prefer them"

"SA1 is one of my favourite games in the series" and "The direction shift from Classic to Adventure may have had understandable intentions behind it, but by making said shift so vocal instead of more graceful and seamless ala 3D Mario, ultimately it was responsible for creating one of the biggest divides in the fandom since SatAM"

"Shadow the Hedgehog is not a good game" and "But it is a funny one, so I can't hate it too much"

"Sonic '06 is over a decade old, and reviewers should stop bringing it up in every review where it's not relevant" and "It's worth remembering what '06 did wrong so that its mistakes aren't repeated, which is especially crucial in the wake of fans choosing to retcon it as an underrated masterpiece"

"No game in the series is perfect, not even your favourite one" and "Literal perfection is impossible to achieve, and would be highly subjective even if it was, the flaws shouldn't cancel out your fondness for the game"

"I respect Yuji Naka's contributions to the series" and "I don't necessarily like Yuji Naka as a person"

"SEGA of Japan have not had a flawless track record" and "It's still their IP, and SEGA of America, as well as fans and creators, need to respect that"

"I've not been that interested or impressed with Daniel Barnes' output in the series so far, and the mantra of ___ Can Do No Wrong is a dangerous slope that leads to egos like Flynn's" and "I respect Barnes' integrity that other IDW crewmembers have not shown"

"I favor adaptations that are faithful to the source material" and "I can like adaptations that do their own thing as long as it doesn't go against the core of the franchise/characters too much"

"We're on our way to the ARK" and "So I guess that means we're going too"