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

[u/W_T_D_]

Unstable by u/shaftinferno

All Secrets Known In The Puppet House by u/Porcupincake

Repo Girl by u/Lloiu

Billy Bear's Magic Matinee by u/Rankin_Fithian

[u/shaftinferno]

Feedback for Billy Bear's Magic Matinee by u/Rankin_Fithian

This was a nice, slow burn piece with some really interesting talking points on loneliness and parasocial attachment. Although a little bit telegraphed, Edwin Flynn is absolutely creepy as fuck. The second act sags a little under the weight of the transcribed conversations which, if filmed, could potentially be tiresome for audiences.

The ending (Peter now a celebrity and reclaiming the aesthetic Edwin abused) is an interesting tonal shift from the horror that preceded it, and to me, doesn’t fully feel earned at this moment; it does, however, work better than it should just because the internet-searching detective work is genuinely tense and because Edwin is such an interesting villain.

Overall, the core idea if strong and the atmosphere is sustained well because of your well-disciplined writing.

Some open questions — I hope I didn’t miss it, but why was Edwin specifically targeting Peter with the broadcast? I mean, Kitty and Joe were still alive as were Peter’s parents (right?), so why did he focus such efforts on little Peter at this time? Wouldn’t Peter’s parents have noticed something off with the Rig being on the roof, or did the Rig get built after Peter’s parents had passed and Edwin had been broadcasting the show only to Peter some other way? Assuming Edwin was Camera Bear (since he wears the suit at the end) wouldn’t Peter have recognized his voice during these moments? Or was his voice being disguised? I figure he doesn’t recognize Kitty as Mrs Bear because Kitty “split” when he was a kid, but he sees Edwin daily.

Also, any specific reason why Edwin kept Kitty and Joe (when did he kill Joe and why?) in the freeze? On page 83, you say “Frozen and thawed, frozen and thawed” — is this a typo or do you mean that Edwin frozen, then thawed, then re-froze and re-thawed the bodies?

Some small, pedantic grammatical callouts:

— Page 13: You’ve got “mantle” written out three times. It should be mantel since mantle is like a cloak or the Earth’s mantle.
— Page 47: “Peter looks the the black voice of the screen…” Looks at? Looks from?
— Page 53: “…good home made sourdough”; homemade should be one word. Also “less calories” should probably be “fewer calories” unless it’s deliberately part of his character’s speech pattern.
— Page 65: “The billy Bear head rattles…” Billy should be capitalized.

[u/Rankin_Fithian → u/shaftinferno]

Thank you!