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.

What’s old is nuke again…

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Clint

fallout_4_cover_artYes, I finally got my mitts on a copy of Fallout 4. And yes, I know this game has been out for over a year, now. Aren’t you supposed to wait awhile for fallout to settle before you chance roaming into it?

I mean really that question applies to both the nuclear event and Bethesda games in general. Bethesda is notorious both for the ambitious scope and sophisticated storylines of their open-world games like the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, and the terribly buggy state those games are inevitably released in.

Don’t believe me? It is known.

Fallout 4 was reported to be no exception, up to and including an “unofficial patch mod” being put together and maintained by fans once the studio itself decided to stop fixing things post-launch, same as happened with Skyrim.

Why is this tolerated? Even rewarded, to the point where the pre-orders of Fallout 4 (not to mention the day one buys) were quite healthy? Well, because of the aforementioned scope and ambition. I’ll lay odds quite a few gamers were just as impressed as I was the first time a dragon randomly attacked a town they were wandering through — not a cutscene, not a scripted event, a true random encounter that nonetheless had the dragon landing on various rooftops and wrecking face while you and the townsfolk and guards tried to fight it off. Or for that matter you could just sneak off and let whatever was going to happen, happen, even if that meant a few people you’d gotten to know were fried corpses next time you came by. It’s one thing for a game to do big setpiece fights under carefully controlled circumstances, but Bethesda took the chains off and it was a glorious experience. In the face of that, I’m willing to forgive a few bugs.

Well, that, and by having patience I get both less bugs and a lower price. Also more mod options — and Bethesda can be credited for being far more supportive of a thriving mod community for its games than other major companies like EA or Ubisoft, who at times seem totally antagonistic to the idea of marshaling the love of their player base to do cool stuff. I guess this is again where Bethesda’s “chaos over order” prioritizing works out. I’ve only barely started the vanilla game so haven’t really felt the notion for too much experimentation, but I did grab a highly recommended one called “True Storms” which seems to be quite stable so far and takes the already impressive weather effects to a next level of immersion. Trying to fight raiders in the midst of a blinding, swirling dust storm, or even just watching rain fall realistically through the holes in a building’s roof, really brings the wasteland to life for me.

Of course the biggest reason I’ve barely started the game so far is the first-time ever built-in feature of Settlements. Yeah, you get to build and manage a post-apocalyptic town. More than one, eventually. If you’re any kind of interested in such features, it’s pure cocaine, and best of all you finally have a use for all the junk lying around as you salvage it for parts. Seeing as the character generation now has a bodyslider feature for the possibility of a more heavy-set protagonist, I was sorely tempted to restart the game with an Uncle Chuck amalgam, but I decided to stick with my original go at making a Rosa. Building generators and such? She’s good with that stuff.

Say, there’s a question. Have any of you out there made any Zombie Ranch characters for a game, on or offline? I have a habit, at least where post-apoc or science fiction settings are concerned. It’s probably fortunate in a sense that we aren’t *too* widely known — occasionally I’ve pondered how much it would suck if you were, say, J.K. Rowling and wanted to play Harry Potter on an MMO, where at best you might be able snag xxHarrrreePotter156xx as a character name. Not that J.K. Rowling is an MMO gamer (that I know of), but then likely also once you get that big a name you don’t have time to play much, or would just as soon be playing some other character than the ones of yours everyone knows and demands.

In the meantime: Fallout 4. Liking it a lot so far! More thoughts probably at some point down the radiation-and-rubble-strewn road.