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5 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.

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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.

Talking it for granted, part 2

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Clint

So it’s been a few weeks since my last post, but I haven’t forgotten that I promised to go into some of my half-baked theories on writing. I rambled around the topic enough in the past entry that I’m not sure I even got to that point, which I suppose in of itself bespeaks poor writing, at least on a technical level. All these blogs tend to be first drafters anyhow, I’m not going for Dickens or Shakespeare.

Oh but speaking of those two gents, they both indulged in a bit of poetry didn’t they? In Shakespeare’s case so much so that he is often referred to as “The Bard” — which if you’re a D&D player will usually conjure up two immediate impressions: one of them NSFW and one of them a dude or gal who habitually carries and uses a musical instrument and sings a lot.

Well, let’s roll with this. What if I proposed to you that a gateway into writing could be found in music? Even music without official lyrics? Vidi this video proposing that the most memorable theme music for movies and television is stuff that lends itself to unofficial lyrics incorporating the title, and how many composers have completely admitted to getting their start from that text.

 

Star Wars… nothing but STAAAR WAAAARS…

But seriously, if text can lead the way to music, why not the reverse? We make up lyrics all the time. We sing stupid improvised songs to our baffled pets. Is that writing? Well if you took it and committed it in the fixed form of copyright fame, I would say so. Is that good writing? Okay, save that for the advanced class. After all, this memed parody of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was wildly popular and will get stuck in your head despite what seems like a serious lack of effort in its lyrics:

@mattstorerhere

Art of the deal #comedy #music #fyp #parody #strangerthings

♬ original sound – Matt Storer

Ad jingles are kind of like that, too. I can’t remember where I left my keys earlier in the day but I can recite the lyrics to a Juicyfruit gum advertisement from the 1980’s nearly verbatim.

So maybe fledgling writers should stop worrying too much about being “good” and instead focus on, for lack of a better term, their “flow.” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. To be, or not to be. Imagine someone reading the audiobook of what you’re laying down, do the words keep a kind of rhythm even though they don’t rhyme? This is especially true of writing dialogue. Speak it out loud, in the voice of the character as you imagine them, and see how it sounds. That way you hopefully don’t run afoul of Harrison Ford’s apocryphal quip to George Lucas of “you can type this shit, but you can’t say it!”

At very least I believe this could get you atarted, much the same as the music composers coming at the process from the other direction. It doesn’t have to be a full-on musical number, but a little bit of rhythm could go a long way.