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.

Playful prompts

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Clint

Y’all probably have heard of “writing prompt” exercises. If not, it’s easy enough to google up. In the context of creative writing, it’s basically meant to get around the problem of writer’s block by offering up an idea to start your pen flowing (or keyboard clacking, or however you like to get your hopefully eventually copyrightable material into fixed form). For instance I’ll pluck one out of the search I myself just did:

3. Misheard Lyrics. Think of some of the song lyrics you have misheard throughout the years. Pick your favorite, and use these misheard lyrics as the title of a new creative writing piece. Write a story, scene, or poem based on this title.

So almost immediately, the song “Purple Haze” as performed by Jimi Hendrix pops into my head with its infamously misheard lyric: ‘Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!

Or as many throughout the decades have thought: ‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy!

Maybe in honor of Pride Month we can just imagine that wasn’t misheard at all, but in any case now I have something to potentially build a story around. Of course, this exercise does ignore the whole maxim that “ideas are easy”… because then again, sometimes they’re not, right? “Where do you get your ideas?” asks the stereotypical audience member, craving the wisdom a writer often has no satisfying answer for, or should perhaps probably come up with something better than “a 10-second Google search.”

Anyhow, sometimes I get them from games. Playtime. It’s definitely not unheard of for this to occur, but then there’s the gulf between “wow, that would make a good story” and actually making a good story inspired by it. Or any story at all, really.

How about just recounting it in a way that makes someone else entertained? That’s a story, right? Doesn’t have to be a novel. You don’t have to fire up Photoshop and use your very limited skills to…

*record scratch*

Okay let me backtrack. So I recently started playing this video game called Stellaris which is sort of like Civilization on a galactic scale. You guide your alien empire on a quest for supremacy but unless you’re a fanatical xenophobe, devouring swarm or similarly anti-social collective, you may very well end up with several different species populating your various worlds. There’s a good deal of randomness involved in what alien species might be present in a given game and how everyone feels about each other, etc. etc., and you’re guiding your empire across a period of centuries as leaders live and die and today’s deadly rival might be your staunchest ally fifty years down the road and nevermind that little misunderstanding during First Contact where an entire ship crew got vivisected, right?

But I digress. Your planets have jobs, and one of the jobs is basically the “police” which is more generally termed by the game as Enforcer and as things progressed one of my migrants randomly ended up being The Law upon my tundra-world colony of Alpha Lyncis Prime, but said migrant happened to be a member of a species that looks like a cross between a sea-slug and a blob fish. Not precisely Judge Dredd material, but now that’s the kind of thing dreams are made of. Or writing prompts, at least.