UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

9 thoughts on “558 – Cotton Clad Calamity”

  1. Raznaak

    Yup, he’s a bastard XD

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Are those pajamas available in XXXL in the gift shop?

  3. Otaku

    It’s been a while, so let me ask: Did we get a reason for him to WANT Susie dead? Not to backseat, but if we didn’t, I’m worried were about to move into “Stupid Evil” territory. Now, stupid happens, don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad storytelling for that to be the case here.

    You’ve just done a good job NOT having that be a driving factor, so the “Kill off the stars of my successful reality TV show.” seems shortsighted, otherwise. Oh, I guess I could be mistaken about the in-story reality TV show’s success. Like, if the company behind them is losing money, or they think a change in management at the ranch would make the whole thing more popular/profitable, then I can see the above scenario happening as well.

    I REALLY think I’m just forgetting something important, but that I don’t have time to deep dive to remind me of, hence the comment. >_<

    1. Deoxy

      It certainly has been stretched out over quite a while, but there have definitely been hints from quite near the beginning that whoever is running the reality TV show definitely wants her dead.

      But I certainly don’t recall any reason why.

      1. Clint

        Yeah it’s fair to not remember since it’s been a hot minute (many, many minutes) but if you feel like a refresher the most relevant bits would be the beginning of Episode 8 and the end of Episode 15. We haven’t explicitly spelled out exactly what The Exec means by his “side hustle” or who was on the other end of that phone call, though.

        I’m hoping that when the whole thing is eventually available it will make sense, or at least enough sense to have hung this narrative on.

        1. Otaku

          Thanks for the replies, Deoxy and Clint. Yeah, I’d totally forgotten about those things. Good to know!

  4. Evervigilant

    Seems about time for the two people who aren’t there to make a surprise entrance as the ace Susie didn’t even know she had.

  5. Scarsdale

    There’s still 3-5 people on her side that might be planning something. This guy is a megalomaniac with a god complex, so letting him think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed sets him up for a fall. Everything depends on those cameras, and I suspect their little stop over by the charging coffins had something to do with her actual plan, not the one the a-hole thinks it is.

  6. lyra

    Really enjoyed the opening of Zombie Ranch. I like the combination of the western setting with the zombie concept, it gives the story a really distinctive atmosphere. I’m a freelance illustrator and animator, and I’d be interested in seeing how some of these scenes could translate into motion, especially as a short animated teaser or character scene.

    If you’re ever interested in something like that, you can reach me here:

    IG: eve_verse_
    Email: [contact.lilaclines@gmail.com](mailto:contact.lilaclines@gmail.com)
    Discord: Lyralilac_

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558 – Cotton Clad Calamity
Posted on August 26, 2026 by Dawn

What would you call this? Armchair assassination? Merk-from-home?

Well, Suzie ain't dead (or undead) quite yet, so we'll just have to see if his gloating is justifiable.

Science Fiction vs. Fantasy

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Clint

This is the kind of topic that probably deserves more than a little discussion, but seeing as this week has us in some distractions I’ll just start off for now with the thesis statement, so to speak, and then maybe write some more next week.

The topic itself burbled up due to Dawn and I having a conversation after she was remembering how bookstores often lumped Science Fiction and Fantasy works into the same section. They might still do this, though there are fewer and fewer bookstores still around to check. Her declaration that such was fine because “they’re basically the same thing!” got yours truly in a huffy, refutative state. Not so! cries I, with all the weight of my absolutely no degrees in literature behind the argument.

But here’s my take: lumping SF and Fantasy together is lazy, but also is not simply a matter of sorting dragons and elves in one bin and spaceships and lasers in the other. Science Fiction versus Fantasy is not about the props and settings, but about how concerned a given author is about the technical details of their world and the impact any alterations (from what we in our world are used to) might have on how people live.

By this metric, I maintain Star Wars is pure fantasy despite its spaceships and lasers because it really has no time or interest in explaining how hyperdrives work; all you need to know is that the Millenium Falcon’s hyperdrive is not currently working. Oh, I know there are technical manuals out there that have been published in the 40+ years since the movie’s release, but I feel like they are willfully missing the point. Star Wars is, excuse the expression, light-years removed from something like the original novel of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, where for better or worse a great deal of time is spent detailing how a submarine might function and how its existence impacts society. Eventually there is a giant squid attack, but it’s hardly the central focus of the story.

Now there’s something to be said for tendencies. Stories with what we’d consider possible future technology tend to explain that tech more often, and on a deeper level, than stories with wizards and dragons, even if Clarke’s Third Law still has a ring of truth to it. ESP tends to get more time devoted to its workings than magic crystal scrying, even if they functionally do the same thing. Ask yourselves, though… what was the last setting you read that really tried to make a study of how magic being real might have impacted Earth’s history? I mean without some amount of handwaving I would find that a herculean task, likely beyond my scope of confidence and knowledge to tackle. Hell, I remember when I was going to try to write about a race of intelligent cephalopods that evolved underwater and got hung up pretty darn early on the tech tree due to the fact you can’t really have fire. Think about how much of human technology depends on being able to easily produce and harness fire. And sure, I could posit some phlebotinum substance like “phosphire” which is as easily observed, used, and reproduced by octopus-folk as fire was for us, but the more you’re trying to lean into Science Fiction the more that feels a bit like cheating.

Well, I didn’t say it was a very concise thesis, but there it is. Change my mind.