Webcomic / Last Res0rt

"It's not about how it starts feeling normal.

It's about how you stop feeling helpless."

Staged around the Blood Sport / Deadly Game Reality Show of The Future, Last Res0rt features a Rogues Gallery of Condemned Contestants along with some volunteers who signed up for the ride. If they want to earn their freedom (or fame and fortune, in the case of the volunteers), they'll have to survive the season.

There's numerous characters, but the comic's main focus is on the show's pair of Lovely Angels: Jigsaw, a furry violinist turned vampire (the only nonhuman vampire in the galaxy, in fact), who signed up for the show to save her friend, Daisy, a Mad Scientist CEO with a robotic leg.

Several subplots brew underneath the surface of the reality show, currently centering on Jigsaw and her latent vampire nature (and the trouble that could stem from it), not to mention:

• her Helicopter Parents road-tripping across the galaxy and otherwise threatening to pull Jigsaw off the show,
• a decades-long simmering feud among the remaining members of a Magical Girl Warrior Program,
• and of course, regardless of whatever else happens, The Show Must Go On.

The comic itself is surprisingly well done, working months in advance to avoid Schedule Slip (although at a comic a week, it's arguably a little slow-paced).

The first few years' worth of comics have been compiled into a Trade Paperback, available here. There's also an RPG in progress, the beta of which is available though signing up for the mailing list, and contains some additional info not included in the comic itself.

A kickstarter to put volume 2 in print has been funded. — and more books are on their way!

There's also a Character Sheet. It needs a lot of work.

Not to be confused with the popular song by Papa Roach, the Neo Geo game, or the Last Resort military drama on ABC.

Unfortunatly the webcomic has not updated since December 2020.

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Tropes featured or appearing in this work:

• Aliens Speaking English: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, since GET (Galactic English Terth) is used as a business/high-class language, with some alien languages and even a little Hebrew thrown in for flavor.
• Ancient Astronauts: Earth / Terth was part of the old Celeste Empire as recently as the 1st century AD, but they lost contact during the Otherworlder war.
• Animal Stereotypes: Well, come on, it IS furry.
• Art Evolution: Painfully obvious, especially in the first dozen strips to the point that it's almost easier to start with the second arc instead of the first.
• Badass Boast: Slick pulls off a rare post ass-kicking boast, although part of it is thanks to having to first deal with a Combat Pragmatist who wouldn't have let him get away with it if she were still alive.
• Bilingual Bonus: There's an awful lot of Gratuituous Hebrew and Yiddish as a Second Language going on, and at least one major secret concealed by it. (We won't spoil it for you, but y'know how Jigsaw refers to Daisy as Kvaterin sometimes?)

• Breaking and Bloodsucking: Jigsaw is unwilling to feed on a sleeping Daisy, until she remembers that it's supposed to be harmless, "like bloodwork". After some initial hesitation, both Jigsaw and Daisy are starting to enjoy it a bit too much, at least until Jigsaw freaks out and bites a little TOO hard, going from Kiss of the Vampire to Vampire Bites Suck in only a few panels.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Sunny is a "dog". With metallic legs and a mane.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Having so many intelligent races helps keep people straight, but so does the number of variants within each species (especially noticable between all the Talmi characters)! While the arena crowds may be Faceless Masses, the only two characters you MIGHT mix up are Vince and Nate (although that's getting better thanks to adding on Nate's new eyepiece).
• Censor Box: One found in this page.
• Church of Happyology: The Church of the Endless, they've even got a Star Org.
• Clark Kenting: Lampshaded by the newsreader reporting on the potential link between Daisy and the renegade Scout Arael.
  Personally? I never would've guessed.
• Combat Medic: Dr. Qin Xu, as well as (current) Scout Arael.
• Compelling Voice: All Celeste are capable of using an ability called "Tone" that lays a subliminal message (represented as a Wizard font background to their speech bubbles) into their audible speech, which most people cannot help but obey. In the RPG only other Celeste, Touched, Light Children, and species with good hearing like Anyr and Talmi even get a saving throw; characters who fall into two of those categories (like White Noise) get two rolls.
• Condemned Contestant: Lots of 'em, really.
• Crapsaccharine World: Our players are condemned criminals and a few of their new friends on a deadly Reality Show where their every move is recorded 24/7, with aliens that have a Compelling Voice as a standard feature, and the protagonist's lieutenant was not only tortured into coming on the show, pictures of her torture (and the audio confessions thereof) are plastered on the news... oh, and like 90% of the cast is either furry, female, or otherwise cuddleworthy.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Kurt "Geisha" Striaeta.
• Cyberpunk: The plot is punky, the setting is less so; the technicolor palette and furry population aren't standard fare, that's for sure. Given how many Cyberpunk works are the same Recycled Script, ANY deviation from that is going to be "unusual".
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Dead Inside are "supposed" to be evil according to the Celeste, but we've not seen proof of that in the story. See also Light Is Not Good below.
• Deader than Dead: Complete with in comic references to the Chunky Salsa Rule. Lampshaded in Shout Box discussion as "Dead to the Nth Degree".

• Even Evil Has Standards: There's two standards, actually.
  • Among the contestants, the only criminals shown as being wholly beyond redemption (so far) are Geisha and Arikos. What exactly do they have in common (besides ridiculous body counts)? Both their crimes involved rape.
  • Geisha and Arikos' being beyond redemption (or at least appearing to be) doesn't seem to be as much because their crimes involved rape as it seems to be because, if given a chance to go back in time and do it all over again, they appear to be the only two criminal contestants who would behave in exactly the same way they did the first time. They don't get why people consider what they did to be wrong and without that understanding, they can't be redeemed.
  • Even Veled seems to have standards, with a special axe to grind against the Star Org.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies
• Expy: Jigsaw seems to resemble Ratchet. Whether it's a coincidence or a deliberate homage is not known.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Jigsaw suggests that Jason's sister Melissa is actually his daughter. Though, the way she said it sounded like she was implying he slept with his mother. She was thinking it was the neighbor's dog.
• First Contact: The Celeste made contact with Earth, or rather re-established it, in 2012, only to find that it harbored enough djinn-si to tear their empire apart.
• Four Is Death: The number four repeats itself a LOT in Last Res0rt. Sixteen contestants with Four of those being Executioners, four teams of four contestants, four members of the Vaeo Family, four members of the Forte Family, not counting Jigsaw... and speaking of "Four"-te...

• Genre-Busting: It's a sci-fi vampire furry comic about a Deadly Game Reality Show, with some supernatural elements, a Magical Girl squad, and even a little Coming of Age (well, coming of vampire age) thrown in for good measure.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Part of the fun in reading the story is trying to figure out which is which. Even Adharia, who should have the cleanest hands of the lot, is in cahoots with Veled!
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: Jason has been "convinced" to remove his clothes.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action - The Celeste's gimmick in a nutshell.
  • To wit: Species can't crossbreed with each other, but they can crossbreed with a Celeste (regardless of which species the Celeste is made out of), and produce a viable Hybrid Monster from that.
  • In Arikos's Back Story, it's revealed that he's had dozens of children... with Talmi women. Y'know, Jigsaw's species.
• Heinz Hybrid: Some Celeste, such as Veled, can have several different species in their genomes.
• Hybrid Monster: What comes out of all that Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action with the Celeste.
• I Am Who?: Jigsaw doesn't even figure out she's a vampire until about eighty pages in. Of course, Veled tops this when telling her that she's not only the only known non-human vampire in the galaxy, but that this is supposed to be a sign of a massive Apocalypse about to occur.
• Improbably Female Cast: Currently the story consists of: a powerful vampire girl, female mad scientist/genius ex-con, female centaur warrior princess lesbian, huge four winged super powered planetary military leader woman, among others... while the males are fewer and generally ditzier/shallower/less important than the females. Possibly because the creator is also female.
  • White Noise is the obvious choice for a male protagonist, Arikos and Geisha have been played up as quite evil (despite the fact we haven't seen them since, oh, Page 60-ish, though that may just be a case of them being out of the spotlight), etc. There's not a real shortage of men, just a shortage of male main characters.
• Intelligent Gerbil: Many, many, MANY of the 'alien' species.
• Invisible Aliens: It is revealed that there are laws against interfering with developing civilizations and limitations on interacting with them. Adharia is from such a planet, and (with help from Veled) volunteered to compete on Last Resort so she could ascend her kingdom's throne.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: Referenced in this page.
  Melody: Since when did YOU love surprises? I didn't even bring a cake.
• Jedi Mind Trick: Jigsaw figures out that her ability to read minds and speak telepathically also allows her to give people suggestions; it's probably not as effective as the fabled Jedi Mind Trick should be, but it works.
• Large and in Charge: Veled in a nutshell.
• Light Is Not Good: One of the two Celeste we've seen so far is a mass mass murderer, and the cast is dead scared of the other).
  • We've seen three more Celeste since then (not counting "Touched"): a lawyer, a Ministry of Joy official, and an idiotic kid who threatened an efreet with an Aerosol Flamethrower.
  • The RPG in development goes further: when the Celeste found earth/Terth they tried to tone humanity, and we only survived because of Terth's massive population of Dead Inside.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Y'know, for a comic that calls itself furry, it's sorta odd that half of the players on the Excutioner's teams are humans... Except two of those humans are Dead Inside (including a Vampire), and Daisy's also a light child to boot.

• Lovely Angels: Jigsaw & Daisy of Team Andromeda. Course, they're not the only characters around, either...
• Luke, You Are My Father: Veled tells White Noise that she is his daughter. At first, he doesn't believe it. A few pages later, he's properly convinced.
• Mangaesque
• The Milky Way Is the Only Way: All of Last Res0rt takes place in an unnamed Galaxy that is implied to be the Milky Way, and there's nothing else worth talking about outside of it, apparently.
• Mistaken for Lesbians: Jigsaw and Adharia, especially after Jigsaw's caught feeding on her. This said, Adharia is most definitely not mistaken.
• Named After Their Planet: Zig-zagged, some species have homeworlds with similar names to their species, others don't. Anyr are from the Aniya system, Vidians from Nurovidia, and the Zillan homeworld used to be called Ziligo before the Celeste took over and renamed it Celigo. But Humans are from Terth^note a corruption of "Planet Earth" and the Talmi claimed Arael as their world.
• Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Light Children in a nutshell.
  • Notable in that this isn't portrayed as "good" or "bad" — most light children are simply "untrained" compared to their Celeste breathren (and it's implied the Celeste keep it that way), which is where the real problems come from.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Well, sort of.
  • Reptilian creatures (Zillans, Vidians, Kendrils) don't have them as far as we know — Cypress is utterly flat, at least.
  • However, if Veled's any indication, being a Celeste who's part-reptile means you can have these.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Dr. Daisy Archanis, not that she gets treated with any respect for it. Dr. Qin Xu, however, is That Kind of Doctor, and it's not like he's treated any better because of it either. Maybe respect is just in short supply?
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Jigsaw refuses to say the word furries!
• Not What It Looks Like: After Jigsaw's caught feeding on Addy, the Vaeo Family immediately assumes Jigsaw and Addy are in a relationship... of course, since Jigsaw can't just say she's a vampire, she's forced into a Sure, Let's Go with That situation.
• One-Hour Work Week: Well, one hour broadcasted live each week, anyway; the rest of the time is implied to be recorded for security feeds and Pay-Per-View content.
• Our Genies Are Different: Practically In Name Only compared to the wish-granting, lamp-residing kind. Rather djinni-si is something of an official term for the Dead Inside. Many of which take on elemental qualities and can sometimes become Energy Beings called Efreet.
• Our Souls Are Different: Explained here. Souls in this setting are scientifically verified to exist and can be tapped for energy, however most living beings have a "stable" 1 sterling soul that resists any change.
  • Celeste and the "Touched" are born with more soul than usual, hence their wings and various powers.
  • Dead Inside, or djinni-si, are mortals who've artificially "cracked" their souls, allowing them to tap into its' energy and absorb additional soul.
  • So-called "light children" have a little more or less soul, which can give them powers but is often accompanied by mental disorders.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Jigsaw's whole plot seems to revolve around this, vampires are a class of contagious parasitic djinn that were believed to only occur in humans.
• Our Zombies Are Different: They usually result when someone's soul cracks just before they die, seemingly especially if their death itself shatters their soul, and tend to be more of a Revenant.

• Power Incontinence: Jigsaw suffers from this with her mind-reading. Of course, given that she's only just discovered her powers (and has no idea if she can even turn it off, let alone how), it's Justified.
• Prophecy Twist: The prophecy's "Dead Inside where none should be" could refer to Jigsaw, or it might be the zombie Star Org Veled accepted as her personal guard.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: When Chairman Viage starts to suspect the Star Org outside his door aren't for his protection, he Tones them all to DIE!. Unfortunately, that seems to qualify as a soul-shattering death.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "I have no clue if she's a Djinn, and you know what? I. Don't. CARE!"
• Reality Show: The titular Last Res0rt, where condemned criminals compete to win their freedom while entertaining the masses.

• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Jigsaw, when she gets really irate. One of the signs that she's a vampire. She also seems to receive a power-boost when they show. All Dead Inside have this; Jigsaw's eyes just happen to be easily hidden since she's a vampire.

• Rogues Gallery: Arguably subverted, depending on whether you're rooting for the criminals or not.
• Sapient Fur Trade: The reason leather is banned on Arael is because back when the native Talmi were a Slave Race they were often, well... Let's just say that one of the exceptions to the ban is recovering ancestral remains.
• Sarcastic Confession: Jigsaw's got to hide her powers somehow...
  Jason: Tell me where Daisy went already! You should know!
  Jigsaw: Sure, because we all know I'm a mind reader. After this we're planning a magic act. Think you'd look good in sequins?
• Science Fantasy
• Shipped in Shackles: The condemned players arrive under heavy restraint and guard in the beginning this way.
• Shout-Out:
  • On the third page, Vic notes that Jigsaw's name "has that nice "killer" tone to it already." This could probably be a shoutout to the Saw movies, considering they feature a killer named Jigsaw.
  • Daisy suggests that the Star Org considers Gabriel Damascus to be like a necromancer becuase he's a Celeste psychiatrist (considered a "dark art"), he corrects her, he's a "Neuromancer".
  • "The truth" ... Maybe with some added jokes.
  • A sextet of familiar-looking poni... -er, kyunn.
  • Celigo's totalitarian government uses abbreviations for its' ministries like MinJoy.
  • Another Show Within a Show is RuP4u1s Frag Race.
• Space Jews: Inverted. Most of the Talmi really ARE Jewish! (So what about it?)
• Superpowered Evil Side: Jigsaw as seen here, just after she was shot.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Half the crew now thinks Jigsaw and Addy are lesbian lovers, and Jigsaw can't very well prove otherwise at the moment, so...

• Theme Naming: Most of the Forte family (Jigsaw, Cypher, Slider and Sudoku) are named after puzzles.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Ta, bitch."

• The Unmasqued World: Played with, as the Celeste walk around openly among the populace, but the Dead Inside are forced into hiding.
• Vampire Doctor: Qin Xu was a doctor, citing it as a profession where his long lifespan would be an asset. His coworkers also gave him a reliable source of blood.
• Vampire Hickey: Daisy is left with a noticeable bite mark (seen here, complained about here) after Jigsaw feeds on her.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Sedja uses this as a nonviolent alternative to dealing with the Children of Gabriel.
  Sedja: Come back! I even left your friend alive!
• Wham Episode: At the end of the first arc in the second volume, Cypress is badly injured, and Jason makes the situation worse by shooting two of the few people left to carry her to safety. As a result, Jigsaw can't use one hand, Daisy's insides are showing, and they've been left behind with a tone'd Team Corvus while the rest of the crew grab Cypress and leave on the shuttle.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: Here between Jigsaw and Binary:
  Jigsaw: I don't recall much after... ... Um, did we do-
  Binary: Jigsaw! I'm your cousin!
  Jigsaw: Twice removed! Right now, I assume nothing!
• Winged Humanoid: Along with Winged Anything That Moves for that matter.
• Writing for the Trade: The comic doesn't drag, but "one-page-a-week" can be a long time to wait.
  • Actually works to the comic's advantage; after putting together Volume One, the comic started mixing panels that take advantage of Full Bleed alongside those that don't as part of its Art Evolution.

• You All Meet in a Cell: Some of the characters knew each other from before, but the show itself is the first time we see all the contestants together.

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