If she put her weight into the attack his head should have been rolling on the ground… or the blade was not sharp enough. I like how Slick was only upset that his head was still attached to the shoulders.
his spices does seem tough and they posses some sort of regeneration if his ears grow back. Still i have to agree with slick that his neck was chopped open but the head was still attached is a little unnerving.
That and she was using her left arm in all this. Unless she’s sinister in handedness (I don’t recall which she is), it’ll automatically be a bit weaker.
Exactly, Noir. Swords are more crushing weapons then severing weapons anyway, unless you’re thinking of katanas, which don’t have the weight for beheading. As for putting your OWN weight into it, that’s difficult with a horizontal stroke, as would be needed to behead a standing opponent. If they’re moving around as well, it just makes the entire situation that much messier. What you want for a beheading is a sharp, weighty axe and a bound, horizontal opponent, and even then it’s easy to botch a beheading. Which is really yucky and get’s rather awful really fast, so they had to hire trained executioners for a reason.
Zarpalaus: Probably not. It’s been shown that Dead Inside don’t work without their heads attached, and Xanatos has already partially lost his. Even if he does rise as a Dead Inside, he’ll probably be hampered by his partially attached head and easy to finish off.
Also: Addy looks badass in the first panel, and I’m not sure if Sedja is nonplussed, surprised, or just admiring he Master’s handiwork in said first panel.
On the beheading thing, I agree that she did a good job, given the scenario. Vertabrea make this sort of thing tough, especially if the fur means you can’t judge where the spaces are.
@eagle: Not sure I agree with the “crush vs. slice” comment – its pretty true with heavy swords – claymores and the like – that have a lot of mass and transfer a lot of enegry when they stop in someone, but Addy’s got a short scimitar there, and it looks pretty thin – I think it’s an almost pure slice and dice tool.
Even if the sword were very sharp, three things were working against a complete severing here:
1. Aforementioned tensile strength of spine and attached tendons/sinews. They are there afterall to keep said temporal attached against considerable pressure.
2. One-handed blow. Even if the blow was a hard one, once that blade hits muscle it is going to begin to twist and using only one hand there is no counter pressure to prevent the pronation.
3. Horizontal strike. Traditional beheadings work because you have a sharp weapon descending aided by the acceleration of gravity, terminating against a neck that is braced against an immobile object. As that neck is not going to move, all that blade’s downward momentum is going straight through without stopping. With a horizontal strike there is no bracing of the neck, so when the blade connects a portion of its kinetic energy will be transferred to the neck in a somewhat equal but opposite reaction: in other words the blade will actually end up pushing the next away to a certain degree. You would have to have a razor-thin blade, offering almost no resistance, to have it pass completely through without imparting any motion to it.
@shad shes on a gameshow were you either live long enough to win or die, odds are there would actually be no “quit” option if it was really the lizard woman(i don’t recall her name at the moment) and not the girl who was mimicking her. she probably would have stopped them long enough for them to turn off the tv and for it to go live.(and hopefully for white to get some clothing)
@Shad Off hand I’d say it’s case she’s royalty and beheading is how many human cultures executed enemies to the crown, If it worked on earth why wouldn’t it be used elsewhere?
how exactly does she plan to get more experience in this? going to the gym is one thing, and i expect shes pretty beefy to begin with. perhaps kung fu training for tauric body bases? what would that even look like?
wait, are there any witnesses? ya know, for more practice?
Coming back more awake: First panel…epic…on a several levels…pulled off really well!
As for decapitation, it seems to be pretty well covered in previous posts. I’ve used several different types of swords personally and can tell you that I’d rather stab or cleave with them vs trying to decapitate.
Something that we’ve forgotten though: You gotta give Addy props for going for the dramatic vs the traditional stab. Plus from the look of things she still did far more damage than a lot of people would manage.
Eddie Riggs- “DECAPIATI-OH MY GOD HIS HEAD IS STILL ON NEVERMIND!”
As for the sword not going clean through- that’s more the realm of axes, and other weapons that have some heft to back up the bladed edge. Swords are more “slice open an artery so you bleed to death”
But then, I’m going off their relative effectiveness in DF, so I could be wrong.
@nightarix: Actually for volunteers it might actually be an option. Though from what Jigg’s says, it might be something to be avoided once you start getting a wrap sheet.
Though Xanatos actions in White’s room and on the ship hint that he cares more about living then the actual repercussions of his actions. Is it any wonder that Addy did him in?
Hmmm. Interesting for what it tells you about the technology at the very least–despite having nanotechnology (which I presume is the basis for a lot of Sedja’s abilities–she’s a *very* friendly and colorful T-1000), they don’t have monomolecular edges? Or at the very least, Sedja apparently can’t produce them…
Also interesting that despite the harem-boy routine, Addy addresses Slick by first name, and takes the time to explain her actions to him. I’d *really* like to see a strip about a typical evening in *their* quarters…actually, that could be a nice filler series, Jig, showing what each team does in their downtime (other than Jason, because that one’s entirely too obvious and more appropriate for e621 😉 )…after all, we’ve seen what happens in ‘your’ room, and a little bit of what White Noise does. 🙂
…Though I do notice that her expression reacting to Slick definitely says she’d be ‘practicing’ on him next if he’d actually been giving her problems over it.
Panel 1 is just made of win. Expression, textures, dynamic action pose. It’s all good.
@ everyone: Keep in mind that Addy is a taurform. She likely tips the scales at over 150 kg / 300 pounds. With a little bit of windup, that’s a whole lot of mass being converted into inertia.
@Redlion: Sure, Addy’s got mass, but you have to put it in motion in a meaningful way. A standing slash can only use the mass of her upper body and torso in this scenario. Though…maybe a modified pounce…hm
@Brunhidden: I imagine you’d cross a standard martial art with cavalry techniques. The variation in takedowns would be interesting.
@Vulpis: I like your idea for a side story. I always get a kick out of “day in the life” types of storylines.
@Rippy Keep in mind as well-even at this range, the neck actually isn’t that big a target–hitting it well enough to even partially sever it takes skill, aim, and luck. Though frankly, I still say she needs to teach Sedja to make sharper edges.
As for the day in the life thing–indeed, especially since some of it could possibly be done as single-panel gags (I have a few in mind, but don’t want to block Jig’s ideas for same. 🙂 ). But I am *very* curious about just what Slick knows about Addy and Sedja having lived with them for a bit now–and whether that oufit is *just* dressup, or what.
Love the first panel (all of them, but especially the first). Addy’s look just screams royalty. She looks every bit the warrior princess she aspires to be. I love how Sedja’s eyes are turned toward the strike even in her “garment” form.
Hm. Personally I don’t think killing someone in a situation like this where no-one really gains anything from it is a really good move, on top of it serving only to anger the people who are running a life-or-death game you’re in. Adharia is a warrior-princess, though, so her values probably matter more to her than the aftermath of the situation.
I was starting to wonder if LR cast members were actually going to die in this. Good to know you’re not scared of killing them.
Noxkitsune: You realize that it might be another year before someone else dies, right?
Jigsaw took her sweet and merry old time building up to this, and I think she’s going to give the next death a little time to build once the fallout from Xanatos’ murder is through.
Although, I do wonder if there won’t be a few Multikills or some Killing Sprees in upcoming Episodes of Last Resort.
@Vulpis shaper edges only go so far, striking bone is still gonna slow if not outright stop the blades path. There’s only 3 ‘sword’ type weapons I can think of that would go through without much effort, and I’m not sure which (if any) of these are including in the LR galaxy:
Vibration weapons, whose serrations and rapid vibration significantly improve cutting power, expect a soft humming noise and bone can still cause some issues.
Energy blades, yes I know what I just suggested, but superheated anything goes through bone pretty easily. Also not silent though not super loud, batteries can be…problematic…
Chainblades, large and cumbersome, EXTREMELY messy, and if you can’t hear it coming something’s wrong.
@Vulpis oohhh, nice choice, but difficult to pull off. Plus fragility issues. If you can pull it off, and I admit that for an Efreet that could be entirely possible, you’ll only run into problems with extremely dense material. Just remember to cut completely straight else you’ll ruin that expensive blade.
Actually, magically generated mono-blades might be relatively cheap, depending on how Sedja makes them. Think about it – she’d need to make less than an ounce of matter for a pretty good sized blade (certainly a lot less than Addy’s clothes or handcuffs required).
@The_Rippy_One making the blade isn’t the problem, maintaining the integrity is the problem. We still have no definite understanding of exactly what Djinn and Celeste are capable of, so a mono-molecular blade may be easy to make, but super fragile because of how thin it is. IE: if you don’t make a perfectly straight cut, snap goes your sword.
On a side note, I love how this conversation has lasted all the way to the upload night, that is some AWESOME right there!
Maybe they ought to go with that then – shatter a small mono-blade, and let the pieces play merry havoc. either break the blade off in someone and let the blade bits cause havoc as the person moves with it/them inside, or, I don’t know, set up/find a wind tunnel and let the blade shatter into a torrent of wind blown slivers into an opponent group. even in a light breeze that would give you decent odds of blinding/choking/throat slitting a couple of enemies (I’m thinking of a Thermopylae scenario at the moment).
A nice little reminder of the true nature of this comic, as well as the playerbase…
Wonder what the fallout will be over this one…
If she put her weight into the attack his head should have been rolling on the ground… or the blade was not sharp enough. I like how Slick was only upset that his head was still attached to the shoulders.
Still princess looks AWESOME in the first panel.
He should of quit before he was ahead in bargaining in threats
How much you want to bet he’s not quite dead yet?
his spices does seem tough and they posses some sort of regeneration if his ears grow back. Still i have to agree with slick that his neck was chopped open but the head was still attached is a little unnerving.
You’d be surprised how tough the spine and tendons are. Collagen is one heck of a tough material.
That and she was using her left arm in all this. Unless she’s sinister in handedness (I don’t recall which she is), it’ll automatically be a bit weaker.
Well that’s a fatality.
That little piggy won’t be going whee, whee, whee all the way home.
Exactly, Noir. Swords are more crushing weapons then severing weapons anyway, unless you’re thinking of katanas, which don’t have the weight for beheading. As for putting your OWN weight into it, that’s difficult with a horizontal stroke, as would be needed to behead a standing opponent. If they’re moving around as well, it just makes the entire situation that much messier. What you want for a beheading is a sharp, weighty axe and a bound, horizontal opponent, and even then it’s easy to botch a beheading. Which is really yucky and get’s rather awful really fast, so they had to hire trained executioners for a reason.
Zarpalaus: Probably not. It’s been shown that Dead Inside don’t work without their heads attached, and Xanatos has already partially lost his. Even if he does rise as a Dead Inside, he’ll probably be hampered by his partially attached head and easy to finish off.
Also: Addy looks badass in the first panel, and I’m not sure if Sedja is nonplussed, surprised, or just admiring he Master’s handiwork in said first panel.
I’m betting that third one for Sedja.
…Addy is now my favorite character. I’m sitting there thinking “No, she’s not REALLY going to kill him in cold blood like that…” *SLASH* O_O
My complements to that 1st panel.
On the beheading thing, I agree that she did a good job, given the scenario. Vertabrea make this sort of thing tough, especially if the fur means you can’t judge where the spaces are.
@eagle: Not sure I agree with the “crush vs. slice” comment – its pretty true with heavy swords – claymores and the like – that have a lot of mass and transfer a lot of enegry when they stop in someone, but Addy’s got a short scimitar there, and it looks pretty thin – I think it’s an almost pure slice and dice tool.
Even if the sword were very sharp, three things were working against a complete severing here:
1. Aforementioned tensile strength of spine and attached tendons/sinews. They are there afterall to keep said temporal attached against considerable pressure.
2. One-handed blow. Even if the blow was a hard one, once that blade hits muscle it is going to begin to twist and using only one hand there is no counter pressure to prevent the pronation.
3. Horizontal strike. Traditional beheadings work because you have a sharp weapon descending aided by the acceleration of gravity, terminating against a neck that is braced against an immobile object. As that neck is not going to move, all that blade’s downward momentum is going straight through without stopping. With a horizontal strike there is no bracing of the neck, so when the blade connects a portion of its kinetic energy will be transferred to the neck in a somewhat equal but opposite reaction: in other words the blade will actually end up pushing the next away to a certain degree. You would have to have a razor-thin blade, offering almost no resistance, to have it pass completely through without imparting any motion to it.
Xanatos is now Nearly-Headless Nick! 😀
tho…looking at it again, i do wonder…WHY does addy need practice with chopping necks in half…? curious.
@Shad: Because practice makes perfect?
@shad shes on a gameshow were you either live long enough to win or die, odds are there would actually be no “quit” option if it was really the lizard woman(i don’t recall her name at the moment) and not the girl who was mimicking her. she probably would have stopped them long enough for them to turn off the tv and for it to go live.(and hopefully for white to get some clothing)
I gotta fourth the praise for the first panel. The flowing composition! Dat texture on the cloak! Those thick outlines! 😀
The fact that everyone here is so knowledgeable about decapitation is wonderfully terrifying! Gotta be sure to never piss any of y’all off. xD
@xXZeddXx: I see what you did thar! 😛
@Shad Off hand I’d say it’s case she’s royalty and beheading is how many human cultures executed enemies to the crown, If it worked on earth why wouldn’t it be used elsewhere?
thats a lot of badass in the first pannel
how exactly does she plan to get more experience in this? going to the gym is one thing, and i expect shes pretty beefy to begin with. perhaps kung fu training for tauric body bases? what would that even look like?
wait, are there any witnesses? ya know, for more practice?
Well, I knew it would be *Something* that didn’t grow back. Did not expect out-and-out murder but eh.
Coming back more awake: First panel…epic…on a several levels…pulled off really well!
As for decapitation, it seems to be pretty well covered in previous posts. I’ve used several different types of swords personally and can tell you that I’d rather stab or cleave with them vs trying to decapitate.
Something that we’ve forgotten though: You gotta give Addy props for going for the dramatic vs the traditional stab. Plus from the look of things she still did far more damage than a lot of people would manage.
Eddie Riggs- “DECAPIATI-OH MY GOD HIS HEAD IS STILL ON NEVERMIND!”
As for the sword not going clean through- that’s more the realm of axes, and other weapons that have some heft to back up the bladed edge. Swords are more “slice open an artery so you bleed to death”
But then, I’m going off their relative effectiveness in DF, so I could be wrong.
@nightarix: Actually for volunteers it might actually be an option. Though from what Jigg’s says, it might be something to be avoided once you start getting a wrap sheet.
Though Xanatos actions in White’s room and on the ship hint that he cares more about living then the actual repercussions of his actions. Is it any wonder that Addy did him in?
Cast page: -1
And in another year or so, we might lose another player! 😀 I kid, I kid.
Hmmm. Interesting for what it tells you about the technology at the very least–despite having nanotechnology (which I presume is the basis for a lot of Sedja’s abilities–she’s a *very* friendly and colorful T-1000), they don’t have monomolecular edges? Or at the very least, Sedja apparently can’t produce them…
Also interesting that despite the harem-boy routine, Addy addresses Slick by first name, and takes the time to explain her actions to him. I’d *really* like to see a strip about a typical evening in *their* quarters…actually, that could be a nice filler series, Jig, showing what each team does in their downtime (other than Jason, because that one’s entirely too obvious and more appropriate for e621 😉 )…after all, we’ve seen what happens in ‘your’ room, and a little bit of what White Noise does. 🙂
…Though I do notice that her expression reacting to Slick definitely says she’d be ‘practicing’ on him next if he’d actually been giving her problems over it.
Panel 1 is just made of win. Expression, textures, dynamic action pose. It’s all good.
@ everyone: Keep in mind that Addy is a taurform. She likely tips the scales at over 150 kg / 300 pounds. With a little bit of windup, that’s a whole lot of mass being converted into inertia.
Maybe Xanatos can join Sir Nicolas in a nearly headless hunt. 😉
@Redlion: Sure, Addy’s got mass, but you have to put it in motion in a meaningful way. A standing slash can only use the mass of her upper body and torso in this scenario. Though…maybe a modified pounce…hm
@Brunhidden: I imagine you’d cross a standard martial art with cavalry techniques. The variation in takedowns would be interesting.
@Vulpis: I like your idea for a side story. I always get a kick out of “day in the life” types of storylines.
@Rippy Keep in mind as well-even at this range, the neck actually isn’t that big a target–hitting it well enough to even partially sever it takes skill, aim, and luck. Though frankly, I still say she needs to teach Sedja to make sharper edges.
As for the day in the life thing–indeed, especially since some of it could possibly be done as single-panel gags (I have a few in mind, but don’t want to block Jig’s ideas for same. 🙂 ). But I am *very* curious about just what Slick knows about Addy and Sedja having lived with them for a bit now–and whether that oufit is *just* dressup, or what.
Love the first panel (all of them, but especially the first). Addy’s look just screams royalty. She looks every bit the warrior princess she aspires to be. I love how Sedja’s eyes are turned toward the strike even in her “garment” form.
Hm. Personally I don’t think killing someone in a situation like this where no-one really gains anything from it is a really good move, on top of it serving only to anger the people who are running a life-or-death game you’re in. Adharia is a warrior-princess, though, so her values probably matter more to her than the aftermath of the situation.
I was starting to wonder if LR cast members were actually going to die in this. Good to know you’re not scared of killing them.
@ nox- its like killing gollum before he has a chance to stab you while you sleep
Noxkitsune: You realize that it might be another year before someone else dies, right?
Jigsaw took her sweet and merry old time building up to this, and I think she’s going to give the next death a little time to build once the fallout from Xanatos’ murder is through.
Although, I do wonder if there won’t be a few Multikills or some Killing Sprees in upcoming Episodes of Last Resort.
@Vulpis shaper edges only go so far, striking bone is still gonna slow if not outright stop the blades path. There’s only 3 ‘sword’ type weapons I can think of that would go through without much effort, and I’m not sure which (if any) of these are including in the LR galaxy:
Vibration weapons, whose serrations and rapid vibration significantly improve cutting power, expect a soft humming noise and bone can still cause some issues.
Energy blades, yes I know what I just suggested, but superheated anything goes through bone pretty easily. Also not silent though not super loud, batteries can be…problematic…
Chainblades, large and cumbersome, EXTREMELY messy, and if you can’t hear it coming something’s wrong.
@nikolai60 I was thinking of monomolecular edges, myself.
@Vulpis oohhh, nice choice, but difficult to pull off. Plus fragility issues. If you can pull it off, and I admit that for an Efreet that could be entirely possible, you’ll only run into problems with extremely dense material. Just remember to cut completely straight else you’ll ruin that expensive blade.
@nikolai60: Binary’s energy scythe seemed to do the trick. 😉
I was honestly a little surprised Sedja didn’t make a magically sharp blade, but maybe that wouldn’t have been sporting enough.
@Sulucamas forgot about that, point taken ^_^ (literally)
Sedja and magically sharp objects seems a good and bad idea at the same time, for various reasons, but who knows what’s going on in their minds.
Actually, magically generated mono-blades might be relatively cheap, depending on how Sedja makes them. Think about it – she’d need to make less than an ounce of matter for a pretty good sized blade (certainly a lot less than Addy’s clothes or handcuffs required).
@The_Rippy_One making the blade isn’t the problem, maintaining the integrity is the problem. We still have no definite understanding of exactly what Djinn and Celeste are capable of, so a mono-molecular blade may be easy to make, but super fragile because of how thin it is. IE: if you don’t make a perfectly straight cut, snap goes your sword.
On a side note, I love how this conversation has lasted all the way to the upload night, that is some AWESOME right there!
Maybe they ought to go with that then – shatter a small mono-blade, and let the pieces play merry havoc. either break the blade off in someone and let the blade bits cause havoc as the person moves with it/them inside, or, I don’t know, set up/find a wind tunnel and let the blade shatter into a torrent of wind blown slivers into an opponent group. even in a light breeze that would give you decent odds of blinding/choking/throat slitting a couple of enemies (I’m thinking of a Thermopylae scenario at the moment).
BEHOLD, THE HEAD OF A TRAITOR …sort of …