UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

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.

Fantasy economics…

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Clint

This is a huge topic and one I probably shouldn’t be broaching in a short blog piece, but in the midst of some crazy days dealing with my day job it’s been nice to just come home and bleed my brain into a video game, absorbing someone else’s world building rather than having to dwell upon my own. You might recognize the above screenshot as coming from Baldur’s Gate 3, which recently released… and of course here I was somehow stumbling across a zombie reference — not just any zombie reference but a dude trying to sell one and a potential customer being confused what to look for in terms of zombie value.

The above is out of context enough it shouldn’t be any sort of spoiler, and yet I felt it a good example for discussion. Behold fantasy economics, where writers do their best to either handwave or make educated guesses at the worth of goods and services that have no real-world equivalents. The Dungeons & Dragons setting of Forgotten Realms which BG3 utilizes not only has this particular bit of practical necromancy but all sorts of other magic including the actual raising of the dead back to life, prompting the question: “What is the worth of a single mortal’s life?”

No really, that question gets asked in-game, and you can give various answers to it but in the end it’s basically “it depends.” Most people in the game that are killed stay dead. In D&D this is usually waved off as resurrection magic being expensive so that it’s out of the price range of the common rank-and-file. Same for magical curing of ailments and diseases. If we trot on over to Zombie Ranch for a moment I have a similar conceit going on where the cure for cancer exists but not everyone can afford it, including (ironically) most of the Ranchers bringing the raw materials necessary to market, the way a Forgotten Realms herb merchant might deliver their wares to an alchemist shop’s back door but can’t really afford the miracle elixirs being brewed and offered in the front. It’s all still a matter of supply, demand, and circumstance in the end.

Well, except for one thing, which might have made an even better topic for discussion here, and that would be something I could call Narrative Economics. Probably someone smarter than me has essayed about this already and called it something else, but here I’m just thinking how bottom line, having everyone just able to come back to life really screws with stories requiring dramatic deaths. Like *boop*, hey there’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru back, good as new, no need for Luke to go haring off into space with that weird hermit. A supply and demand of death. If a mortal life has infinite or near infinite supply, wouldn’t it become nearly worthless in the balance?

That last discussion is probably worthy of a whole book chapter of dialog from Plato and Socrates, but I think for writers the answer is much simpler which is that you either have to come up with some reason your characters can’t just call the healer for the sick grandma or ignore the fact Cure Disease exists and hope none of your audience really cares. At least you get to be the arbiter of your own question.