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.

Below the radar?

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Clint

So a funny thing happened while I was playing Wasteland 2. Like many CRPGs, there is various looting of defeated enemies, containers, etc. This is the same today as it was decades ago, and no doubt stems right out of the original pen & paper Dungeons & Dragons, which devoted no few pages to treasure tables for random generation of the shinies your party could look forwards to once the monsters were properly feathered, filleted, and fireballed. MMORPG’s often make a certain rare item the reward for an entire questline, and people willingly team up with up to 39 more-or-less strangers just for the opportunity for one person to maybe get the “drop”. We like our loot.

The fact that Wasteland 2 has loot is not surprising. What was surprising to me was the form some of it took, which was various bits of intellectual property that was not even a little bit disguised. We’re not even talking the paper-thin don’t-sue-us veneer of Fallout’s “Nuka-Cola” or our own “ClearStream”. Wasteland 2 presents a world whose clock stopped around 1988. Technically 1998, but I’ll talk about that discrepancy another time. It’s definitely a 1980s take on what existed before the bombs fell, and the various loot containers of the landscape are rife with Rubik’s Cubes, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Teddy Ruxpins.

I wouldn’t bat an eye if I were picking up Bubik’s Tesseracts, Lettuce Head Tots, and Reddy Tuxpins. But here they were, not only with their trademarked names but pictures and flavor texts identifying beyond a doubt the designer intent. It’s a Teddy Ruxpin. Likeness used (as far as I know) without permission. Yup.

I mean, it’s possible that InXile Studios went out and licensed the inclusion of all these, but that seems unlikely, especially since all of them are what’s considered “junk items”, with no real use beyond selling them off to the next trader you run into. Further complicating the issue are the occasions where the names do get changed, such as a bottle of “Hair and Shoulders” dandruff shampoo or a diesel locomotive with “UNINON PACIFIC” labeled prominently on its side. A cult based off one of Tony Robbins’ motivational books changes the book title slightly and takes care not to mention him fully by name. But then you pick up a Baby Ruth candy bar.

Now the probable answer here is that different people designed different parts of the game, and one or more of them were far less concerned with possible lawsuits. After all, a big part of trademark law depends on the idea of brand confusion or unfairly profiting off the inclusion of a trademarked item, and it’s hard to argue Wasteland 2 is selling any more copies than it would normally because it has a Sega Genesis as a loot item. Certainly none of the stuff detailed above is being used in the advertisement of the game, but on the other hand it’s not really being used for parody or satire, either, it’s just there.

Maybe InXile’s legal department knows more than I do. Or perhaps it’s just a straight up case of “flying below the radar” and being too small a fish to bother with, since really, most copyright and trademark cases are an issue of whether or not the person or company being allegedly infringed a) knows about it, and b) wants to bother. Wasteland 2 has made millions of dollars in sales, but it still hardly has the prominence of a Triple A title from a major publisher.

The continued existence of Artist’s Alleys at comic conventions is proof that operating below the radar works, but on the other hand I recall that time Dawn got this illustration (which had sold exactly zero times) pulled from one of her online stores because Fender complained the neck of the guitar resembled their trademark too much. Then again places like CafePress are notorious for crumbling and caving at the very whiff of a DMCA notice, regardless of its validity, so perhaps that example doesn’t prove anything except that CafePress has no spine.

The developers of Wasteland 2, by contrast, have some big brass balls, as I talked about last week. So maybe this rampant flaunting of IP is just yet another facet of them exercising the freedom of being crowd funded and answering to no one but their fans, and perhaps a commentary on how today’s corporate culture has gotten way too wrapped up in holding onto their copyrights and trademarks with twitchy death grips. Maybe that’s why they’re also mostly classified as “junk”.

Or maybe I’m reading way too much into a bunch of in-jokes and references whose only difference from most is just coming right out and calling a Nintendo Power Glove a Nintendo Power Glove. But even if it’s flying under the radar, it’s been on my radar, and it’s another interesting development.