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foresightstudio.bsky.social
Ben // foresight studio
@foresightstudio.bsky.social
330 followers 250 following 180 posts
Ben (he/him) // TTRPG designer, layout artist, science guy // strange stories for strange people

www.benmansky.com/foresight-studio
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foresightstudio.bsky.social
Pax D3! We have less than 20 core Triangle Agency books left, come get them (booth 4234)!!
November 23, 2025 at 6:20 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
Had an idea last night so I printed and folded like 12 of these before hopping on the train to Philly. if you see me at Pax and you want one, just ask!
A one-page folded zine sits on a marble countertop. It's got a grey border and bold text that says "the EPIC hand book," and the word book is styled to look like glasses looking up and to the right. Underneath in smaller text is "Edgewood paranormal investigation club," and in even smaller text, demo edition. At the bottom, in white against the dark border, is the text "Seeing is believing!"
November 19, 2025 at 2:33 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
The Cross Stitch is half off for the itch Halloween sale!!

foresight-studio.itch.io/the-cross-st...

The state of the world making you want to scream? Just escape into a little pocket dimension where nothing can ever hurt you! Definitely won't cause any problems
A shrouded figure with five spindly arms and long claws emerges from a pink hole, holding a giant needle and wrapped with string. It reaches to the right, one hand partially covering a bright yellow square with "50 percent off" written in it.
October 28, 2025 at 6:44 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
There's so much more happening in this movie - "unusual" mannequins, washing machine disasters, extremely uncomfortable dates, a newborn baby flipping the bird - but you know what? I'll leave it there. You'll just have to check out In Fabric!

That's it from me on #hauntalong 2025. Happy haunting!
A bald woman in black presses her face against the face of a mannequin, cheek to cheek, laying on her side. Both the woman and the mannequin wear bright red lipstick, dark eyeshadow, winged eyeliner and arched eyebrows.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
At the same time, ritual can be silly! Games, as any art, can be fun and dumb and profound and heavy with meaning all at once. It's just a matter of framing, and the perspective you bring to it.
An entry from a clothing catalog, on a taupe background. On the left, the text: "Marble banister slip. Front panel presents friendly chandelier lace. Scalloped edge, paradise hem. Motion straps. Colour: berkshire blue. Size 48." On the right, a photograph of a skeleton with wavy brown hair wearing a blue lacy slip.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
What sticks with me about In Fabric is that every activity we engage in - no matter how frivolous - can be framed to have the weight of a ritual. When you buy a dress, you envision who you will be when you wear it. When you play a game, you cast stones, divine fate. You create and you share a dream.
A hand reaches across a wooden parcheesi board, poised to pick up a piece.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
What I love most about In Fabric is the way it aesthetically reframes shopping as ritual and clothing as ritual object. Store employees speak in stilted poetry - they don't say "I'm sorry," but "I have reached the dimension of remorse." In secret, they conduct sensual rites below the store.
A white woman with a large dark brown updo and bold red lipstick wearing a black dress stands behind a Black woman with a bob, who wears a bright red dress. They look in a round mirror with sun-like rays extending from a golden frame.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
In Fabric feels designed to disorient. It's set in a surreal version of 90s England that looks more like the 70s. Some of the performances (and the cinematography) are heightened, Giallo-style - but not all of them. The score, costuming, and production all reinforce this sense of unreality.
A screencap from an ad for Denton & Soper's Trusted Department Store. It is a red screen with white sans serif text that says "Sale" repeatedly, arranged in three nested circles. A man sits facing away from the camera, his head framed by a white circle on a poster in the background that has the text "The Waingel's Wavelength." Facing the camera, two middle aged white men in suits sit across a table from the silhouetted figure.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
The quick version of the plot is: a lonely bank teller buys a dress from a saleswoman/witch at a very strange department store, and it ruins her life. The dress makes its way into the hands of a washing machine repairman and his fiancée, and it ruins their lives too.
A dark hallway, with a door open into a couple's bedroom. They lay in bed, snuggled up against one another. A print hangs on the wall above the bed. Floating in the air above them is a red dress, illuminated by light from an unseen window.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
I *love* In Fabric. It's a silly, pretty, creepy movie about an evil dress (and also consumerism). You can extrapolate all sorts of Big Ideas from it, but at the end of the day it's a spooky story that I treasure for its vibe above all else.
A hypnotic window display outside a department store. A spiraling installation of nested magenta circles hangs against white curtains, flanked by two mannequins with long auburn wigs.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
It's my third and final entry for this year's #hauntalong! Today I humbly invite you to consider In Fabric, a movie I went into blind back in 2019 that's been lodged in my mind ever since. In the words of Miss Luckmore, saleswoman extraordinaire: "a panoply of temptation!"
The dimly lit lobby of a department store, flanked by signs advertising a sale. In the back, a red neon sign bears the Denton & Soper's logo. In the lobby, two mannequins stand beneath arches, and in the front, a row of four women wearing large black dresses beckon. In front of them crouches a middle aged man, his arms outstretched.
October 27, 2025 at 1:58 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
CarnageCon in Killington: surprisingly peaceful, despite the name
A photograph of a large, low hotel and the foothills of a mountain against a blue sky with a few clouds, reflected in a pool of still water.
October 26, 2025 at 5:23 AM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
...or would it be better to just take it to therapy? (probably lol)

Regardless, we contain multitudes! So let's keep on making and playing games so we can explore ourselves without fear, no matter the unexpected & possibly transgressive places it might take us. And happy #hauntalong!
A figure cleans up a movie theater. In the back, the screen has a blurred image of popcorn and the message "Thank You for Watching."
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
The Owen-Isabel dichotomy makes me think of the permeable membrane between player and character in TTRPGs. Do we lose something when we reinforce that membrane with safety tools? Can a game - or a table - make puncturing that membrane worth the risk?
A snowglobe with a scene of a young black boy sitting on a living room couch, watching TV.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
I have a lot of feelings about I Saw the TV Glow that I don't have space to dig into here, but I love how it asks what we're willing to repress out of fear of transgression. And I like that it leaves us with the reminder that there's still time to change, even if Owen can't.
An empty suburban street with a person standing halfway down it. It is covered in chalk scribbles and the message "there is still time."
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
I Saw the TV Glow ends ambiguously. Owen is still stuck in a life that isn't his, but his sense of unbelonging reaches such a fever pitch he has no choice but to look inward. And what's scarier than that?
A scene of a children's birthday party at a family fun center, crowded with employees whose heads are all slumped as they stand, frozen. In the back, a man looks desperately to the ceiling.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
Owen rejects this. To accept he is Isabel would confirm that his life was meaningless - that he was tricked. Worse, if he tries and fails to become Isabel, it would confirm his wrongness, his shame. It would mean that this ill-fitting, empty life is all there is.

(This is a movie about transness.)
Two people stand on a football field looking up at the night sky, with a large, comical but grotesque moon in it, sticking out its tongue at them. The left figure has short hair and wears a pink-purple dress, and the right figure has long hair and is dressed in black.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
But then, the lines between TV and reality start to blur. Maddy returns as Tara, and tries to snap Owen out of it. This suburban nothingness of a life sucks so bad because they *are* the two girls in The Pink Opaque, trapped by Mr. Melancholy in the Midnight Realm.
A close-up face of an unsettling moon-masked figure, its face pocked with craters and the edges of the mask crumbling like gravel. Its eyes are empty and dark.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
After watching an intense episode of The Pink Opaque, Maddy decides to run away. Owen has a chance to go with her, but he's too scared. She disappears, The Pink Opaque is canceled, and Owen doesn't see her for almost a decade. In the intervening years, his shell grows thicker.
A young Black man stands in a warehouse-looking space, the floor covered with colorful plastic, staring at a single blue balloon.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
Owen is pulled to Maddy and The Pink Opaque, fascinated by its strange imagery and the girls at its center (Tara and Isabel). He doesn't really have other friends, and his parents seem to exist only to enforce the norms of suburbia. And maybe there's a sinister reason for that.
Two young women float cross-legged above a dock overlooking a lake. The sky swirls with orange, blue, and pink.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
It's about a boy (tbd) named Owen who's drawn to a TV show called The Pink Opaque, which features two girls defending their reality from monsters sent by Mr. Melancholy, the evil man in the moon. Owen bonds with Maddy, an older kid at his school (Void High School - VHS, lol), over the show.
A 90s-styled title card of fictional TV show The Pink Opaque. Text at the bottom advertises that it's on Saturday Night at 10:30 pm/9:30 central. In the background a young woman in a purplish dress stands on a football field with her arm raised.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
I Saw the TV Glow is beautiful. Tbh it's not particularly "scary" - very little violence, no jumpscares, etc. - but it's packed with moments that make you think "oh... oh no." (In case you're hunting for something that tips the scales of existential unease further towards horror, try Channel Zero).
A messy living room is illuminated by a bright glow coming from a TV. A figure sits slumped in front of the TV, their head through the screen.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
In yesterday's installment of the #hauntalong, we Saw the Devil. Today, we're seeing something way less threatening! It's just like, a glowing TV. Nothing to shake the foundation of your self-percept here, right?
A dimly lit suburban street lined with houses. Scribbly blue and pink chalk drawings take up the first half the empty street, and at the end of the road sits an ice cream truck.
October 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
Thanks! Someday... in the meantime I'm having a lot of fun with the direction layout's going (ps congrats on funding!!!)
A mostly empty example spread from The Firmament, a tarot TTRPG. It features white text on a black background, with a bunch of boxes and dotted lines framing various elements and icons. On the right side of the right page is the text "HEAVEN STIRS." Test layout of title page and table of contents for The Firmament, a tarot TTRPG, featuring bold white text on a grimy background with a grid overlaid on a bluish reddish gradient.
October 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
foresightstudio.bsky.social
coming soon!!! The Firmament, a tarot game for 1-7 players. Join your celestial brethren and stop humans from invading heaven, lest they open the door to the House of the Infinite.

An early version of The Firmament has been out for a while, but I'm finally getting ready for v1! & maybe print?
A draft cover of a game called "the Firmament." It features an enormous pearlescent hand reach from the top to the bottom of the image, a faint blue maze inscribed on the arm. A bony, insectoid thing weaves around it, from the top left to the bottom of the image. A faint grid is visible in the background. At the bottom, in a funky, slightly occult/Judeo-Christian flavored font, are the words "the Firmament," and below that, in small sans serif font, "Ben Mansky."
October 13, 2025 at 7:16 PM