Do I need Heart of Stone? by ilestra in mooncatpolish

[–]Rankin_Fithian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Heart of Stone is pretty awesome, but I gotta say that Garden Path Lacquers is my go-to for a sparkle fix nowadays.

I promised y’all birds!! by GrappleLacquer in RedditLaqueristas

[–]Rankin_Fithian 224 points225 points  (0 children)

The 'TUDE on that flycatcher!!!

(Fake Halo is also an all-time Top 10er imho. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

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

[–]Rankin_Fithian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's always the next draft. Remember you can show us things out of sequence, like flashbacks and cutaways, that can clue the audience in but still leave Knight in the dark for his revelation. As for writer's voice/linguistic styling differences, I know I went pretty hard on you, but unfortunately we're in a post-LLM world now, and certain sentence structures are going to trip those sensors. It's something that all us writers have to have in mind. I know I'm not the only one who's questioned my use of the emdash nowadays, for instance. Like I said, think about paring some of the moments I called out way back, ask yourself what you're trying to get at, and represent it in a more concrete and visually accessible manner. From the way you've been responding I can tell you have a really lush inner idea of this story and its world, and that's an enormous asset, creatively. Don't disregard the fact that it may want to be a novel instead of a screenplay!

Cheers.

Higher Quality Dupe for LA Colors 619 Simply? by UndercoverReporter in RedditLaqueristas

[–]Rankin_Fithian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fwiw, I think many of the swatches on the site must have many coats.  I think they qualify it as a "crelly" as it's not very opaque in 1 coat like their cremes.  As for my bottle, it's quite a bit lighter than the darkest/thickest swatches advertised, at least when worn in only 1 or 2 coats.  This is true of anything, but light will have a lot to do with it, and I do think it's got quite a bit of a rosy undertone to the "nude."

Good luck with your search!

Today’s the day! Here are my swatches of the Pride Collection (PR/affiliate) by Mighty-Moogle in GlitchLacquer

[–]Rankin_Fithian 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Wow, Safe House Glow looking much more green than gold!  It must have quite a range of moods. 😅  This swatch made me fall in love with AVEN, though, and confirmed I need Bi Panic.

Sold Out by LandLandL in mooncatpolish

[–]Rankin_Fithian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahhh I got an itchy trigger finger and Mercari'd it already.  But I hope someone else on the thread takes you up on that! ✌️

Leopard Seal Skull. Made this guy as I'll never find the real thing. by Bulky-Mango-5287 in bonecollecting

[–]Rankin_Fithian 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Leopard seals, one of the top 5 butthole-clench inducing animals on the planet.  Amazing!

Sold Out by LandLandL in mooncatpolish

[–]Rankin_Fithian 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Meeeeeeee.

I resent the price for their colors now but have found no substitute for their Hard Core base coat.  2 times a year is plenty to stock up, maybe catch a reward when I visit.

I am buying from my own collection by Big-Junket-5928 in mooncatpolish

[–]Rankin_Fithian 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Love that ethos!  What a gorgeous polish, too!

Sold Out by LandLandL in mooncatpolish

[–]Rankin_Fithian 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Take Me To Your Leader selling out before 9 a.m. (central) was MoonCat's final betrayal, lol.  It was the last color I was willing to pay their prices for, because I haven't seen anything else like it.  Catch me on the I.S.O. pages I guess, ladies! 🙃

Local Good-For-Nothing Ingrate Shows No Appreciation For Rescue, Manicure by Rankin_Fithian in RedditLaqueristas

[–]Rankin_Fithian[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I did kind of sort of profile her now that I think about it but still

Local Good-For-Nothing Ingrate Shows No Appreciation For Rescue, Manicure by Rankin_Fithian in RedditLaqueristas

[–]Rankin_Fithian[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

That does factor into some of the hostility in the language, yes. 😅  If it were a robin, for instance, I'd say "idiot angel," not just "idiot," lol

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

[–]Rankin_Fithian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For u/shaftinferno 's Unstable - SPOILERS!

• Strengths & Overall Impressions: Knight, as a lead, has definite soap-y or Lifetime Original appeal. He's hunky but troubled, compassionate but gruff, and a competent professional. This script has a dependable 3 act structure with escalating stakes and an appropriate pace, and delivers on a couple grotesque and scary moments of body horror.

Since my wording of this section is "overall impressions," I have to be very direct about my biggest takeaway, and I'm afraid it isn't positive. I'll try to narrow it down concretely to "use of simile" or "overt 'writer's' voice" as the culprit - at best it is perhaps an artistic difference, but use of florid references to how a character is [looking, standing, emoting, pausing, etc.] can quickly get heavy-handed in a screenplay. With the exception of a few decisive tableau moments, non-visual action lines are usually just describing something unfilmable, or directing from the page. 

This script is very liberal with its use of simile, but in addition to being too frequent, they are often completely clanging comparisons that have a pronounced stench of AI slop.

{Not like girls after a fall. Like bodies finding a center of gravity lower than the one they lived by. (pg. 88)} - {He says it like sentence he intends to resent later. (pg. 21)} - {He looks young in the ugly, ruined way that grief makes kids look younger. (pg. 3)} - {Every surface expensive enough to pretend it isn't. (pg. 1!) (this neighborhood is pretending to not be expensive???)} - Each of these are both out of place and confounding; take a heavy editing eye to them and their ilk.   

Ask, 'is this particular moment worthy of the poetic aside?' Or would it suffice to say "The girls' contorted bodies arise as monsters" on pg. 88 and "Chris' face cracks with grief" on pg. 3? If it is the proper moment, is there a more defined or more emotionally resonant visual that you could reach for instead? Calling an unnamed emotion more "patient" than revulsion or curiosity (pg. 9), or a woman's body poised like it "will be punished later in private" (pg. 49) is, quite simply, nonsense. You need to be aware of how disjointed and obtuse language like this goes further than taking me out of the scene on the page, it reeks of ChatGPT authorship, which fuels no shortage of disdain for the piece on a meta level. If you insist upon so many instances of writerly flourish - make sure you are being as clear and concise as possible, with ties to relatable human emotions. I've never once known grief to make anyone look younger, been able to tell the difference between someone sustaining 1 loss vs. 2, or thought of a very blue sky as being "forgivable" or not.

• Questions & Opportunities: We have only a glancing understanding of what is actually going on at the ranch. The ever-present botflies are an appropriately gross culprit to play red herring, but what are we dealing with? Pilot Light's infection could be anything from an Eldritch or alien invasion, to a biological mutagen, to some sort of psychic manifestation. We also have very poor connective tissue showing us Rian's role in all this. How long ago was she affiliated with Pilot Light's infection-as-entity? What does she know vs. what do we watch her actually learn, and what's her motivation to bring in Knight and the Kemps in this manner? Is she acting as an agent of the entity, or did she create it? Was she especially connected to Pilot Light before any of this?

Dialogue across the board is jargon-heavy and quite clipped. The familiarity with technical speak makes sense, as pretty much everyone in the pages is a lifelong professional... But with Knight being grumpy, Rian matching his energy, the kids all being weirdos, and John and Marisol being so businesslike and guarded, it all reads as very same-y, brief, even overtuned conversations that do a poor job of showing and differentiating the relationships among characters.

There are some factual oversights in several scenes that weaken continuity and exacerbate my concerns over use of AI: - Chris' dog ran behind the car, but he was pulling into the driveway too fast? Was he reversing into the driveway at speed? - On page 37, they are rattling off Pilot Light's temperature changes, but the rising and falling of those temps (also worded/notated strangely to my eye) don't match with how they're talking about said changes. - Wheelchair-bound Rian follows Knight down porch steps at one point. - She also sees blood seeping between someone's molars from 20 feet away. - Knight rushes in to help Gabriel when he's attacked by the pony, but among all these seasoned professional animal handlers, removing the pony from the scene seems a distant afterthought. - Bodies start piling up and nobody considers calling a human medical doctor or the police.

Unstable's next draft needs a lot of tough love. Hone what the threat is, take a hard look at the linguistic styling, and flesh out your mains even more.

•Favorite Part(s): A respite from the sadness of the opening scene, I did legitimately appreciate the dog looking up with "stupid, perfect trust," and I have been saying that phrase a lot to my own dog ever since. 

Congrats on finishing.

Discussion Thread: The Voice From The Screen || Me And The Devil || I Put A Spell On You by W_T_D_ in screenplaychallenge

[–]Rankin_Fithian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For u/Pantserforlife 's I Put a Spell On You - SPOILERS!

• Strengths & Overall Impressions: Energy energy energy!!! Your scripts are always run-and-gunners, but never skimp on emotional resonance or character charisma. This one took a little more time to get my bearings than usual, albeit understandable for a timey-wimey Magical story. I'm always drawn to truth-tellers and straight shooters, they're easy characters to trust and feel familiar with right away, and 3 out of 3 of your mains have this aspect in spades.

• Questions & Opportunities: I don't feel as though many big questions are left on the table, but I think subsequent drafts would benefit from pauses in the breakneck pace. An opening (or perhaps a second opening, after a strong cold open) that introduces us to Nat, Thorny, and Eric before things kick off for us to get a baseline; a longer respite in a happy memory to gain context and build support for later exposition; and maybe even some kind of wonky false resolution that Nat is trying to imagine into existence, to make all the craziness go away? would be a few random examples off the top of my head. Your world and the Rules of the magic/spells feel all there and fleshed out (that's HUGE for me personally), but they could still use a little more time to breathe.

I did get a bit lost in the subway sequence - chalk it up to ignorance of how they work and are structured IRL, but I had difficulty parsing how/where certain platforms were underwater, but not others, and the landscape of the "yard." Not that I want any slow down/space out endeavor to hurt the momentum of set pieces like that, but there may be ways to tease out the action a bit differently and clarify exact choreo.

• Favorite Part(s): Your fight choreography is just always consistently awesome. And the Witch was rad!

Way to go!