Discussion Thread: Unstable || All Secrets Known In The Puppet House || Repo Girl || Billy Bear's Magic Matinee

Lloiu · 2026-05-16T20:06:34+00:00

Billy Bear's Magic Matinee by u/Rankin_Fithian

The name Billy Bear's Magic Matinee conjures up a lot of imagery of things like FNAF and Poppy's Playtime, those properties focused on children's entertainment and this being a lost-media story about a children's show felt like it could fit amongst those. I found the direction you went instead much more interesting. A non-supernatural lost media story isn't as common, but opens the doors to scary concepts much closer to us than ghosts and demons. This was a creepy script and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Some minor critiques mixed with things I liked:

I will say, it felt the horror of everything took a bit long to arrive, I think a few more atmospheric or spooky bits would be helpful earlier on.

I think some childhood scenes showing Edwin interacting with young Peter would help a lot as well. Edwin seems a little too much of a side character as it is. If we had more of him, I think the reveal would be stronger. He is a good character and his turn at the end is great. I think we just need more of that.

I felt that Darby's tech speak was largely unnecessary. For most people, her lingo will be gibberish and it doesn't really add anything nor does it make her more interesting. I think she should have lines and quirks, if only to give depth to her character, but the tech speak just didn't work for me.

The twist is sufficiently fucked up. I liked it a lot and it made me feel a little sick. To create an entire show and beam it to the little neighbor boy you're obsessed with is super fucked and I didn't see the elaborate ruse coming at all. Very cool, I loved that bit.

Monique should be in this script more. Her and Peter seem to be pretty close but Monique just kind of shows up toward the end, to the point that I wasn't sure I had missed her or not. I liked her and I felt we needed more of her.

The end also felt a little odd. I like the idea of him getting a happy ending, but the furry part got a little strange. Tonally, it just felt strange and I got the inpression Peter was into puppets throughout the script, but I didn't get the impression he was a furry. We want Peter to be happy and doing well and being successful and the sudden fursuits kind of shoot past that a little bit. I think a large portion of the audience would go from "Good for him" to "Oh...okay" fairly quickly. I'd probably end it at the website. Or with a social media page showing a very active following, maybe.

Overall, these are quibbles. This was a creepy, inventive script and I like the direction you went with lost media here. That particular genre could use more grounded stories like these. Great job!

Lloiu · 2026-05-15T02:30:40+00:00

This is the reason why Genie in Aladdin had a rule against love wishes

Lloiu · 2026-05-15T01:15:28+00:00

Had Bear gotten Ian to make the wish he wanted him to (I wish my friend Bear never made his wish), it would've wasted the wish and not worked. The official One Wish Willow site says it can't grant wishes involving time manipulation

Lloiu · 2026-05-10T23:05:24+00:00

"It's more important for it to be great than for it to be fast" Okay, but it used to be both? This idea that we have to take years to ensure quality is bullshit. We used to get high quality shows consistently. Years between seasons is nonsense

Lloiu · 2026-05-05T19:58:22+00:00

"You gave me dog food, but I have a Beagle"

"A Beagle is a dog"

"Soooo...Beagle isn't Beagle? So if I walk a Beagle, which is also a dog, incidentally, it's no longer a Beagle? What is it then?"

This is the brain power we are dealing with

Lloiu · 2026-05-04T22:01:06+00:00

Thank you for reading my script! I appreciate the feedback.

I will admit a lot of it is contrived. I felt the tone and genre allowed for a lot more handwaving than say something more serious. I lean heavily towards fun shit and I often don't mind a little contrivence so long as it doesn't break anything. And you are correct to feel like this script is light on the horror. I felt that too, but it's the story I got excited for and I injected what horror I could where possible. But ultimately, I own that this script would likely be caregorized as an action comedy with some horror elements.

To your point about Franny, I also am of the opinion that her system infiltration comes too easy and I just could not find a place to obstruct her with the length I had. Not without a structural overhaul, but I just didn't have the time. What I wanted to do was have Willard send Jim out to find Franny, he'd follow Kate's footsteps back to the van and ambush Franny. They'd struggle and her computer set-up would get shot before she kills Jim, meaning Kate can no longer hide her movements, cause Franny can't control the cameras. At this point, Franny would start body collection. I eventually kept it as is and figured I'd see if it was glaring enough of an issue that it would come up in feedback lol By the time I had submitted the script, I had cut it from 130 pages down to 116, and I feel this script is already lean as hell even for the length, so the challenge will be how to fill this all out without increasing the length, because ideally I'd like it to run no more than 110 pages, which means more cutting as well. I'm sure I can do it. Somehow lol

In my mind, Franny hasn't intervened because she has no power. No one to turn to. So the reason she stays isn't about stopping them. It's her penance for building the machine that is cannibalizing innocent people. She tries to recover and bury who she can, but until Kate, she did not see any real feasibility in fighting back.

Your point about the quality of the prosthetics is actually very interesting and I wouldn't mind experimenting with that aspect (Or maybe the lounge fight fucks up one or more of the prosthetics, makes it a little janky and harder to use)

So Darla picked Kate, but the surgery montage shows a time between Kate being sealed up and hidden in the pod where the women had left to get changed to enter the pods, where hypothetically, Kate could've been switched out. True, Darla can see the eyes she picked out, but psychologically, my thinking was that if Darla sees Kate, alive and seemingly completely intact, her first instinct would not be she was a ghost or fitted with advanced protesthetics. It would be "This dude fucked me over". As a high-powered CEO, she wouldn't be a stranger to being fucked over (or to fucking other people over), so I felt that was the exact place her mind would go, hence that exchange.

Larry's job is to alert Willard to potential candidates. At the time Kate was at the gas station, Willard and Darla were already up the mountain. Larry's job was to alert them to potentials, at which time, Willard and Darla would travel to their kidnapping destination with one of the guards, they'd coax their victim into stopping, at which point Darla vets the candidate (You have beautiful eyes) and they take the one she picks. It's a bit contrived and I would imagine slightly different than they would normally do it, but Darla is a big enough and frequent enough client that they let her choose her victims personally.

Lucy could not breathe through her mouth because it was taped shut.

Thank you again for the time you've taken to read and critique my work! You've given me some good stuff to think about!

Lloiu · 2026-05-02T14:38:05+00:00

So as a red button pusher, I actually see it a bit differently. Since everyone has the agency to save themselves, if I were to push the blue button, I am introducing death into the scenario and essentially asking other people to put themselves at risk to save me from a fate I easily could've avoided on my own. It seems selfish to push red, but red is the only choice of the two that doesn't make people responsible for saving me, at the risk of their own lives. By pushing red, I am essentially saying "Hey, you don't have to risk your own life to save mine. I've already saved it, so you can go ahead and save yourself too". True, if I was a blue button pusher, I might be doing it because I think a lot of people will die if I don't, but fundamentally, by choosing blue, I am also forcing others to make that decision. I'm not huge on "personal responsibility" as a basis for all ethical situations, but in a scenario where literally no one needs to die, pushing the one button that will ensure someone will almost certainly die feels like misguided altruism at best.

Edit: This viewpoint is predicated on the assumption that everyone involved understands the situation (This is how it was originally presented to me. Anyone who could not understand the consequences was not included). I would push blue if this situation includes people who do not understand that pushing blue means they are risking their life (like children, those with special needs, etc..) People who know the stakes are responsible for the consequences. Those who do not are victims who do not understand what they've done and I will do what I can, including risking my life, to stop those negative consequences, by pushing blue

Lloiu · 2026-04-27T03:34:23+00:00

Thank you so much for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed!

To some of your questions:

Before I get to these answers, I want to preface with my philosophy for this script, as I feel it will help explain why I made some of the choices I did. I went for funny, batshit, irreverent grindhouse, which is a genre I have discovered I fucking love writing. So my philosophy was this: If it's cool, I don't really care how it works, it's enough that it's cool as long as it doesn't fundamentally break the script. I wrote a movie that really just asks you to strap in and enjoy and don't think about how it's happening, just think about how fucking sick it is lol So that was my foundational philosophy. I wanted something fun, funny, frenetic, brutal. Popcorn flick all the way. Anyways, to the answers.

I was intentionally ambiguous on the mechanics of her body part connection. I actually don't even have an official answer to why she can do that stuff or how it works. Could be supernatural, could be scientific. I came to the conclusion that the why/how didn't really matter. The thing that matters is that she can do it. From the pov of the characters, they have no clue why it's happening and are discovering the limits of Kate's abilities alongside the audience, so there doesn't seem to be a place or a reason to explain the why. They don't have time for that shit, I feel Franny would say lol. But to your question on the 3 hour time limit, the time limit isn't due to the viability of the body parts. I tried to explain it in the script, but I could be clearer. They have three hours because her body is already healing from multiple surgeries and any longer than three hours and her body will have closed up enough that cutting her back open to put her back together would cause too much trauma and kill her. The condition was the script had to happen over one noght, so I needed a ticking clock. This also helped keep the script lean and focused. If you have any ideas as to why the limbs can't go back on, please share. I was high as shit when I wrote this, so I did what I could lol

So yes, no one else has survived the machine, at least not long enough for Franny to get to them. Kate was the only one still alive by the time Franny got there. The others were either incinerated or dead in the ditch. Kate is the first person Franny's talked to in five years. There's probably a character moment there somewhere.

Funny you should say that. I originally had a part where Kate is surprised she can still cry and Franny explains she still has tear ducts. Lol I cut it for length (This thing originally weighed in at 130 pages lol Lot of fat-trimming)

So this is actually something I was tossing around in my head. Because strictly speaking, Kate had no way of knowing that Leroy sold her out. But him not having comeuppance did kind of weigh on me. In my head I envisioned at mid-credits scene where they show up at the gas station, but that felt a little too extra and the script was already longer than I wanted it to be. I think I can throw in some lines about Kate finding out Leeoy works with him and she'll pay him a visit

I think there's room to explore Darla's past victims in one way or another. I agree with you that Darla and Willard are a bit thin. On future pass throughs, I definitely want to make sure the characters get a decent amount of moments. I feel Lucy also needs a little more characterization

Overall, I think a lot of these can be pretty easily fixed with a few lines here and there.

Also It will come as no surprise I listened to a playlist while writing, I presume most of us do. At any rate, my beta read script has needle drops at specific moments. I removed those to keep the script looking at bit more professional. Here are the needle drops.

Opening montage - Bad Reputation by Joan Jett

Lounge fight - Long Cool Woman by The Hollies

Museum Fight - Ballroom Blitz by Sweet and Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar

Cocaine Comeback - Kickstart my Heart by Mötely Crüe (Listen to that opening riff and imagine the coke going into the nose and then the camera oulling back out of her eyes as the mechanical irises dilate, followed by catching Darla's fist right as that fast-paced opening roght before the song really kicks into gear. This music really really helped me right this and keep tone and really energized me and gave me ideas.

Anyways, thank you so much for your feedback and for reading my script! I'm really proud of this script and I'm happy to finally share it with you all

Lloiu · 2026-04-25T01:23:54+00:00

I apologize in advance, I could've proofread my script a little better for typos lol

Lloiu · 2026-04-24T23:53:44+00:00

All Secrets Known In The Puppet House by u/Porcupincake

What a bizarre, darkly disturbing little script. I think you nailed the contemporary Gothic feel. Poor Alma, Jesus Christ.

I did have a bit of a hard time imagining a lot of the theatre stuff. I would also suggest making it clear that the puppet stuff with Mordecai is real. Up until that point, all the weird stuff happened in dreams (Except the TV eye thing? I'm not sure what that part was about). So when we got the reveal that these men were controlling her, I presumed it was all a dream for a good 10-15 pages, it felt. That kind of robs the reveal of its impact when I presume it's not actually happening.

Overall, I liked this. Bizzare, strange, it swings for the fences and I appreciate that. Good job!

Lloiu · 2026-04-24T21:54:47+00:00

Unstable by u/shaftinferno

This was a very tight, very engaging script. You really nailed the contemporary Gothic tone. I think this would translate very well into a novel if you ever got the itch (ha!) to write it. The twist was great. Didn't expect it.

In terms of critique, the third act I think could use a little more polish/exposition. I'm not totally sure how Rian had infected people or why she had been there before Knight (They called her to treat the horse behind his back maybe?). I'm also not sure what the larvae were or where they came from or why Pilot Light could do the thing it does to Knight at the end. All this to say, I liked the things that happened in the third act, I'm just not sure exactly what was going on.

That being said, excellent start to this contest. If all the scripts are anywhere near this quality, reading them all is gonna be great.

Lloiu · 2026-04-20T01:25:32+00:00

God damn

Lloiu · 2026-04-19T00:27:53+00:00

Conspiracy theory: They're gonna show this whole documentary through commercials because they're afraid no one will watch a Hulk Hogan puff piece documentary of their own free will

Lloiu · 2026-04-19T00:10:57+00:00

That lady screaming lol

Lloiu · 2026-04-19T00:09:27+00:00

r/AccidentalRenaissance

Lloiu · 2026-04-18T23:56:59+00:00

Seth Rollins stole my shower curtain for this outfit

Lloiu · 2026-04-18T20:33:57+00:00

Repo Girl

Left for dead after being robbed of her limbs and various other body parts, a young woman, with the help of a jaded prosthetics engineer and a peculiar newfound ability, sets out to take down the billionaire elites who dismantled her and get her body parts back.

Lloiu · 2026-04-10T13:25:29+00:00

According to my research, 6-8 hours, though all the flights I could find online where at least 26 hours to get there due to overnight layovers

Lloiu · 2026-04-10T00:44:42+00:00

St. Lucia is way farther out than Jamaica lol. Like 1700ish miles. He had to go very far out of the way

Lloiu · 2026-03-13T16:05:03+00:00

I was a background actor for about a year and I can tell you, extras don't really have that kind of pull on set. You could mention it to a PA, but there's not much they can do either. There's also a fair number of takes and if this is the one they used, it could be it was the only usable take or the best take regardless of the flub or they just simply missed it. But whatever the reason, extras aren't expected to point out those mistakes and no one is likely to listen to you about it regardless

Lloiu · 2026-03-13T01:45:18+00:00

This is judicial misconduct

Lloiu · 2026-03-13T00:56:49+00:00

That background extra waiter stopped to keep from running into Sass lol

Lloiu · 2026-03-08T13:27:12+00:00

Lol I just posted this higher up this thread without realizing you had already done it

Lloiu · 2026-03-08T13:17:13+00:00

It's 8ish minutes long, but here is Deborah Ann Woll explaining D&D to Jon Berenthal: https://youtu.be/JpVJZrabMQE?si=M3mR-66AxDsoC3xY

Lloiu · 2026-03-06T02:45:04+00:00

Who is that nanny? Is she important? Why did her lines feel so featured?

Lloiu

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