The Right Thing 2016-05-23

[AmriloJim]

The back of the shirt is definitely red!

[Sgt. Howard]

Check your seatbelts, Paul's taking us on 'Mr. Toad's Wild Ride' again! I am assuming that's Kevlar plate armor that the heartless one is wearing- in which case I am impressed... isn't that called a 'Shong Tah'? That's a soft tissue attack that RARELY draws blood... but is still effective. Seems Atsali's Mom has perfected it.

PAUL: Silencers go 'Pfft' or 'Paff', not 'Bang'- as the pistol is not in recoil, I assume the upper receiver has a lock that negates the cycle. A semi-automatic that cycles on a silencer makes enough noise through the ejection port to negate the silencer's presence- and pistol ammunition IS sub-sonic, so I doubt there's a change out of ammo to keep the breech shut.

Trained on them I am, built them I have... very useful they are. Come to me for gun questions that you're not supposed to ask.

[Dave]

Put me in the camp of Little Girl = Atsali, Woman = Atsali's mom, "Weaponized Flower" = Castela, and Guy At Door = Having a Bad Day/Redshirt.

Yup, that seems consistent.

I think this flashback may be dated to maybe 5 years or so before Castela was actually born/created. Atsali here appears to be around the same age at which she was portrayed in the "Little Atsali" strips back in 2013 (and given her evident happiness at play in those strips I think we can assume that her parents were still alive then).

She looked quite a bit older when Castela first arrived in the orphanage.

At a guess... in this flashback Atsali's around six or seven? Castela is created/born/sprouted and then orphaned/abandoned about five years later, when Atsali is eleven or twelve?

If that's correct, Atsali's mother (and perhaps her father) may have been part of the original research team which was working on an anti-fae hybrid, but may not have played a direct role in the actual creation of Castela.

PAUL: Silencers go 'Pfft' or 'Paff', not 'Bang'- as the pistol is not in recoil, I assume the upper receiver has a lock that negates the cycle. A semi-automatic that cycles on a silencer makes enough noise through the ejection port to negate the silencer's presence- and pistol ammunition IS sub-sonic, so I doubt there's a change out of ammo to keep the breech shut.

Take a look at the last frame... I see what appears to be a flying shell casing. I don't think that's a fully-silenced single-shot weapon.

I dunno if it would be wise to take a single-shot assassin's weapon into a fight against a combat-form-capable para such as a Siren, especially if you aren't guaranteed of complete surprise for your first shot. Even if you could unlock it and cycle the action manually, you might not ever have time to get off a second shot.

So, this pistol might be partially suppressed, but not fully silenced.

[TheOtherOne]

What? She couldn't have just knocked him out? If she's that powerful and quick enough to grab the gun. Maybe Paul's going for ratings.

[meisdadoo]

Looking at that last panel again, and the placement of arms, shadowing, etc.
I still can't tell if that left arm is faded/semi-transparent to indicate speed or magical phase shift to go past the armor plate and materialize inside where soft squishy parts are.

As far as "just knocking someone out" . . .
1. Face is covered or unseen = Redshirt aka doomed to die at the hands of one of the identifiable characters.
2. When the bad guys show up with armor, night vision, and guns drawn; it is clear that they are not there to talk, they have come to kill you and your family, then destroy everything you care about. There is no moral obligation to show mercy. There is however a need to kill them before they kill you.
3. "When you have to shoot; shoot. Don't talk." (Pablo; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

[AmriloJim]

Right hand block/gun grab, left arm through rib cage under the attacker's right arm.

I think you're right. He was probably shooting from the vest... no need to use sights when you're up-close-and-personal. Mom grabs barrel and pulls up-and-back, moving the arm out of the piledriver chest hit. That combination also helps insure the piledriver generates more thrust.

Perhaps Mom has sufficient control over her feral form to change just her forearm... raptor claws would definitely help in piercing the armor en route to the chest cavity.

[AnotherFairportfan]

...pistol ammunition IS sub-sonic, so I doubt there's a change out of ammo to keep the breech shut

Some certainly is, but some isn't - i just amused myself by looking up the Parabellum, and all of the variants listed are supersonic, ditto .44 magnum. .380 isn't - barely.

Speed of sound is roughly 1100 fps; the .45 is under that, but other modern pistol rounds i can recall that i've had occasion to know about aren't.

[jwhouk]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think this is the fifth time Pablo's shown someone dying in-comic.

[Alkarii]

The thing about body armor is that the Kevlar only really stops shrapnel and pistol slugs. Bullets with pointed tips, like most types of rifle rounds, will push between the fibers and penetrate. As for the boron carbide plates, you can actually break them by dropping them. Or, at least, that's what they told us at Ft. Benning. They break when hit by bullets to absorb and deflect most of the energy while shattering the bullet.

But yes, her being a Para certainly has something to do with being able to ram her fingers through like that.

[Dave]

But yes, her being a Para certainly has something to do with being able to ram her fingers through like that.

She was definitely ahead of her time.

[lake_wrangler]

But yes, her being a Para certainly has something to do with being able to ram her fingers through like that.

She was definitely ahead of her time.

Hmm... that should have been titled "40 women who have more money than sense, fashion or otherwise."

[lake_wrangler]

I'm wondering if this is a "regular" flashback, or if this is Atstali starting to remember things she had kept suppressed for a long time.

[Warrl]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think this is the fifth time Pablo's shown someone dying in-comic.

Does that include Monica? I think she's been shown dying in-comic three times.

[DilyV]

Wow... Atsali's mom might have been a bad ass military NCO at one time... She's got the knife hand down to a science...

Impact looks to be through the ribcage, just below the armpit and angled out approximately through the spine.

Definitely a deadly strike designed to take out the lungs and possibly overpressure the heart to explode it. Dude's dead before he hits the floor...

[Alkarii]

Oh! Something I didn't even think about until just now...

The sides and especially the armpits are very difficult to protect with anything solid. This is bad because there is a major blood vessel there. So, she could have gone in from the side. That guy would be dead from an injury like that in a VERY short time.

[AmriloJim]

Deaths and Near-Deaths

No Place Like Home 2006-12-31
1) Monica (attempted; shot w/machine guns while retrieving portal cloth from Egyptian smuggler's den [bullets poited])
Stop Talking To Me 2007-06-18
2) Monica (out-of-body experience; flashback to bus)
Selfish Little Bitch 2007-06-19
3) Tina (in car that hit bus, body not seen)
Take This And Do This 2009-11-05
4) Monica (metaphorically; disembodied head stabbed with ClockKeyBlade by Connie in Shelly's room)
Hold On To Your Ass 2010-01-05
5) Monica (Shelly, in the CalendarMachine chamber, with the ClockKeyBlade)
Follow Phix 2012-08-09
6) Monica (frozen by Euryale [revived by her kiss the next day*])
So Weak 2012-08-13
7) ApotropaicSphinx (decapitated by Phix uppercut)
Never Left Their Sides 2012-09-06
8) Nudge (rescued; chased by Phix through stained glass overlooking cliff at end of Library hallway [rescued by Phix two days later*])
Before She Melts 2012-09-20
9) Monica (frozen by Euryale yet again)
Nice Story 2012-10-12
10) Monica (Bud rips out heart)
Dead Sea Dig 2013-03-25
11) Jared (machine gunfire Massacre)
12) ArchaeologyStudent (ditto)
One of Eighteen 2013-03-26
13) ArchaeologistA (ditto)
14) ArchaeologistB (ditto)
15) ArchaeologistC (ditto)
16) ArchaeologistD (ditto, other 11 victims killed off-screen)

EDIT:
From Her Past 2015-03-20
17) Thana (suicide)

The Right Thing 2016-05-23
18) RedshirtNinja (hemoectomy by Atsali's mom) Yeah, I know that's not a real word.

I probably missed some, but that's all I could dig up using louisxiv's wonderful index.

* = RL time, not Wapsi time

[FreeFlier]

Put me in the camp of Little Girl = Atsali, Woman = Atsali's mom, "Weaponized Flower" = Castela, and Guy At Door = Having a Bad Day/Redshirt.

Yup, that seems consistent.

I think this flashback may be dated to maybe 5 years or so before Castela was actually born/created. Atsali here appears to be around the same age at which she was portrayed in the "Little Atsali" strips back in 2013 (and given her evident happiness at play in those strips I think we can assume that her parents were still alive then).

She looked quite a bit older when Castela first arrived in the orphanage.

At a guess... in this flashback Atsali's around six or seven? Castela is created/born/sprouted and then orphaned/abandoned about five years later, when Atsali is eleven or twelve?

If that's correct, Atsali's mother (and perhaps her father) may have been part of the original research team which was working on an anti-fae hybrid, but may not have played a direct role in the actual creation of Castela.

Castela could be a later generation/version . . . just the first successful/living sentient blackthorn.

PAUL: Silencers go 'Pfft' or 'Paff', not 'Bang'- as the pistol is not in recoil, I assume the upper receiver has a lock that negates the cycle. A semi-automatic that cycles on a silencer makes enough noise through the ejection port to negate the silencer's presence- and pistol ammunition IS sub-sonic, so I doubt there's a change out of ammo to keep the breech shut.

Take a look at the last frame... I see what appears to be a flying shell casing. I don't think that's a fully-silenced single-shot weapon.

I dunno if it would be wise to take a single-shot assassin's weapon into a fight against a combat-form-capable para such as a Siren, especially if you aren't guaranteed of complete surprise for your first shot. Even if you could unlock it and cycle the action manually, you might not ever have time to get off a second shot.

So, this pistol might be partially suppressed, but not fully silenced.

In this kind of (apparent) situation, you don't actually need complete silence . . . just to suppress the crack of the shot enough that bystanders don't recognize it as a shot. "Huh . . . what was that? . . . someone must have dropped something."

Also, a suppressor that small won't be that effective, and since that looks like a tilting-barrel lockup on that pistol (that's normal for combat autopistols) then the weight of the suppressor is limited because if it gets too heavy, the pistol won't function.

And that's pretty definitely a cartridge case.

--FreeFlier

[TazManiac]

Actually.

Where exactly is Atsali's Mom's hand going through? Maybe it's just a simple error, but given the intent the hands should be switched and the attacker's arm should be partially behind her in the frame.

She's struck from under his outstretched arm, across (and inside of) his chest, and exited on the rear and other side of his torso...

I seems to call for an additional move, but given a release of the knob and the resulting scene, there must have been sweeping upwards of her Right Hand, Grasping the gun, perhaps pulling the Assailant forward, and a subsequent trusting through the ribcage with her Left...

Yeah, that could work.

Looking at that last panel again, and the placement of arms, shadowing, etc.
I still can't tell if that left arm is faded/semi-transparent to indicate speed or magical phase shift to go past the armor plate and materialize inside where soft squishy parts are...

It's not her left arm that is faded, it's 'speed lines' representing the gunman's arm being pulled forward quickly...

[jwhouk]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think this is the fifth time Pablo's shown someone dying in-comic.

Does that include Monica? I think she's been shown dying in-comic three times.

You're gonna make me, aren't you?

EDIT: Dangit, AmarilloJim!

Yeah, it's more than five. WAY more:

1. I Snapped (2006-05-05) - Jin gave the one guard an uppercut through the face, in front of Bud and Brandi.
2. Answered Prayers (2011-03-22) - technically a "replay" of the previous, but from Brandi's POV.
3. Better Protection (2006-12-22) - Jin slices, she dices, she turns one of the Lanthian Priest's guards into deli meat!
4. Done Here (2011-05-13) - Plutonium poisoning is a bitch. Shelly Prime-minus-1 builds the vimana cell. (Technically this was an onscreen "death", but Shelly Prime-minus-1 was killed by the plutonium.)
5. So Weak (2012-08-13) - Oops, forgot about this one - Right hook from an angry Phix. Medeia lost her head, but Phix had her for lunch.
6. Nice Story (2012-10-12) - Bud tore Monica's heart out. (Technically, the first time Monica "regenerated" (Friggen Dead, 2012-10-04), she was "dead," but, of course, she got better. And, she wasn't killed.)
7. Standing Her Ground (2013-01-15) - Face off. Definite kill shot on Phix's part.
8. Dead Sea Dig (2013-03-25) - Oh, I forgot about this one. Jared's head was 'splodied - as was her co-student. And one day later we had two other kill shots as Kath was running away with blood all over her. (One of Eighteen, 2013-03-26)
9. Return the Favor (2013-09-27) - Monica's "dealing" with The Tar was an impaling.
10. The Right Thing (2016-05-23) - Atsali's mom (or so we're assuming) takes out Redshirt #1.

Notes about other "deaths":

• The flashback to where Bud dreamed about obliterating Bia's hut (2006-06-07), of course, is technically the first - but, as we all know, she didn't actually die.
• Same thing with the flashback to Monica being tackled by Jin (2007-06-19).
• When we came upon Suzi snacking on Martin Reynolds (Let Him Go, 2012-11-02)... well, he was already dead.
• The Nu Gui's "death" (All Heck is Breaking Loose, 2013-06-26) wasn't a death, as much as it was permanent crystal storage.
• The then-unnamed demon girl (Thana) was also already dead when Atsali found her (From Her Past, 2015-03-20).
• Suzi didn't actually "kill" that child rapist (Not Good Company, 2015-05-14). She kept him alive on adrenaline until the EMT's arrived.
• I won't even get into Nadette's solution to her math homework (Work Within the Story Problem, 2016-02-01).
• Atsali didn't really kill any of Gryphon's opponents in field hockey (A Controlled Stampede, 2016-04-12), thankfully.

[AmriloJim]

Yeah, I discounted Suzi's activity and the Nu Gui.

However, Monica was killed twice (and revived twice) by Euryale... but would she regenerate if melted? Oh, unless she were in Hades when she became a popsicle, the regeneration would kick in well before.