A human mattress is basically a Talita chair.
Transcript
Talita removes her shoes in Gillie and Idrisah's apartment, looking apprehensively at Gillie, who is standing up and signing at one of her scroll monitors.
Talita: Gillie’s still working?
Idrisah: Don't worry, we're out of frame.
Idrisah pats the couch next to her, where she is sitting with her laptop.
Idrisah: I got the spare mattress out for you. Sit!
Talita sits comfortably down on the mattress with a fitted white sheet that has been placed on the floor and leans an elbow on the couch, handing Idrisah her tablet.
Idrisah: Did you get the specs?
Talita: Well, mostly. I had to do a lot of… estimating.
76 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 150”
chirp
I really love Talita’s roll-tab sleeves here. Very stylish!
Jordan Aster
I know that Idrisah and Gillie are xenolinguists, but what does that all entail? What is Gillie chatting about here? I’m assuming she has a bug ferret on call.
Cobbington
I get the impression that they’re inter-species translators/negotiators/ambassadors, responsible for conveying information between human and alien groups when neither can speak the other’s language. Idrisah specializes in Avian language (I believe the name of the language is tillitian), while Gillie specializes in the primary Big Ferret sign language.
Origamigryphon
Hee, Gillie has a magical girl and robot guy on her shelf
TotallySomebody
Another question I thought of today: do Centaurs have different words for their “eating” mouth and their “talking” mouth?
Hexbug Swallower
I’m not a furry but I can’t stop thinking about how a Talita fursuit would work. Way I figure it would have to be like those two-person horse costumes, but with arms and some kind of animatronic trunk.
cinna
Honestly, I imagine it could be designed much like a fullbody muppet! The performer can control one arm while puppeting the face with the other hand, I think a setup like that makes sense for her trunk too. The big quadrupeds like Mr. Snuffleupagus are indeed piloted by two people, I guess Talita would be like a cross between Snuffy and Big Bird? :p
Paroxysmall
I was thinking for a smaller scale fursuit (not centaur sized), one person could wear a moving-leg centaur leg body attached at the waist, and if the trunk is poseable it could be made with one of those fidget pop tubes, although I think other things might work for the trunk like wires, ball jointed spines, something animatronic, etc. Of course, if more of the human body is showing, it will look less proportional to a centaur’s proportions, especially the top torso and shoulders, but maybe some padding could smoothen the appearance of the shoulders? Padding around the wearer’s hips and thighs would be needed to make the lower torso larger, and if the hands have a longer metatarsal, either the fingers would be non-motile or work with short stick-grabbers/strings. If the centaur torso + neck are a big part of the appearance, I guess the neck could be elongated and the wearer could see out of the neck but that would make opening the mouth harder.
The usual furring techniques could be used, although having clothes would definitely save on fur (although unless they’re modified human clothes not unlike Talita’s growing up, patterning clothes is it’s own beast and would require more materials and designing and considering the source material…also the clothes could be a permanent option). If the entire thing were a full bodysuit (all nakey), I’d imagine that the back torso would be attached inside the suit and secured to the wearer with a belt, although it might have to be removable for maintenance? I don’t want to think about patterning the suit…
(below are 2 taur suits for reference)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SpLiNrLNzt0
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/4303406/
Alternatively somebody could make an inflatable suit. Probably less complicated but I don’t know how to do that. Maybe not the fursuit people think of, but whether a cheap costume or custom detailed, it would make the body shape easier to create.
Paroxysmall
sorry for long post lol
I don’t know if this has been answered before, but Jay how do you feel about people making costumes and cosplaying as your characters/work? Not commissioning anything, just self made costumes and crediting you as owning the characters/intellectual property
Hunter
Wait, why’s Idrisah’s hijab off?
Jay Eaton
For Idrisah’s specific cultural instance of modesty veiling, hijabs are worn in public or around men you aren’t related too. Idrisah’s not in public and Talita is not a man.
TotallySomebody
Ooh
cinna
The last panel is like a perfect nail-painting pose, and it’d be sooo cute to see Idrisah painting Talita’s hooves… assuming they’d have access to something safe for a centaur body!
Peter Jensen
Well, there is this comic (future timeline):
https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/Comics/Makeup
cinna
oh oh, you’re so right, I can’t believe I forgot about that! I was thinking about the one AMA question about braiding her feathers (https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/AMA/3) and now I’m just imagining a whole makeover montage
BigRiver
It’s really so incredible how natural Talita’s design seems, especially knowing exactly how much effort it takes to create an original species that moves and occupies space so realistically. Nice work.
Eux
ough Idrisah’s hair is cute. and i love the details of their apartment so much <3
Sen
Something came to mind with the last pages. While many aspects of designing a space suit for a centaur is more difficult compared to humans. Air circulation might be easier. Because she doesn’t reverse the airflow, intake and exhaust in the suit can be in separate locations. I have not looked into how space suits work though so I don’t know if that is an actual problem for human space suits.
SIGSTKFLT
Based on absolutely nothing, I’d say it’s a minor inconvenience
JoB
Human space suits tend to ventilate the entire space within the suit, with LiOH filters in the “backpack” removing the CO2 from it (and O2 getting added); that’s why the hoses often connect to the suit at the hip, rather than near the helmet. I guess that goes to prove that keeping inhaled and exhaled air as strictly separated as possible (like with a scuba diver’s mouthpiece, but note that that interferes with the diver’s ability to speak) is not necessary. It’s not like the air we exhale has had its O2 entirely replaced and should not get rebreathed at all, anyway.
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But having that said, yes, if you’d need to make a space suit for intense manual labor, the separate airways would likely help some. See the strict length limits on snorkels for an idea how close our breathing is to running into problems because of dead space …
Sen
Thanks for giving me some insight into this.
JoB
“We’re out of frame.”
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… and the microphones (to feed Gillie’s CC) turned off, I hope. If RQ 16 is any indication, the bug ferrets could very well get interested when hearing about Bip …
Varyon
Gillie’s microphone is probably off by default, since she’s not going to be saying anything to those on the other side anyway and potential background noise would just be an annoyance. Plus it means Idrisah only has to be careful to stay out of frame while she’s doing whatever – cooking, tidying up, listening to music, exercising, playing video games, conspiring to commit Grand Theft Spaceship, etc – rather than also needing to stay quiet.
Enai
Well, teechnically, the people who have committed grand theft spaceship are Ixion or rather, the suppliers who sold the Runaway to them. For legal reasons, she’s not scrap (they didn’t file the required paperwork to declare her so, see here), making her Bip’s. Using the skyhook to leave without paying for it must at least be theft of services or something, though, to say nothing of the fuel.
JoB
Or the spare parts used to repair her. Or the tools and company time used therein.
Trees
I really appreciate that this comic’s art style is simultaneously so detailed but also very clear and easy to parse.
Looking at panel 2 it occurs to me that it could so easily be difficult to grok considering all the dense background gubbins and complexity of what is going on, but instead it’s immediately comprehensible.
I’m not an artist so I don’t know how much time and effort goes into translating the idea ‘Gillie is having a sign language conversation with a ferret-alien over a video call at her cluttered desk but it’s from another character’s POV’ into a single, elegant, still image that is both effective mechanical storytelling and pretty art… but it’s probably A Lot. And then it has to happen thousands more times.
.
Erm.. TLDR. Really great job at being an artist Jay Eaton. It seems like magic but I know it’s effort.
5
i think the grayed-out background and white outlining around foreground elements (in this case, gillie) works wonders. it’s much harder to parse images where the background and foreground are both busy with lines of equal shade and weight
Trees
Well spotted, didn’t notice the white outline the first time. Kind of makes Gillie look like a saint limned in holy light or something.
Considering the low, sort of point-of-view angle of panel two perhaps that’s how Idrisah always sees her wife.
JoB
> Kind of makes Gillie look like a saint limned in holy light
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Gillie: [steps off the antistatic mat so that she can BTsuperdetailedC as she ROFLs]
Trees
I wonder who the first genetically modified saint was?
Could the church make an alien a into saint if they converted hard enough?
I have no doubt that some kind of council in the Vatican has to debate issues like this.
7
aww that’s cute. yeah okay i’ll integrate that into my belief system. we’re seeing in idrisahvision
urlocallesbiab
this space is so cozy…. talita is Among Friends, and that feeling is so vivid on this page, and that’s so nice!
eden
feck, they’re apartment is at least twice as big as talitas garage. why couldn’t she have two storage units at least??
JoB
I’m probably just adding fuel to the fire here, but Talita does have roughly twice the floor space of that shed to herself, thanks to the extra space behind that particular dry storage unit and that and the areas on its sides being fenced off.
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Yes, yes, still debatable. But I can see the practical problems in setting up a separate septic system for her within one of those apartment buildings, short of converting an entire one like it’s being done now.
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… then again, they did convert living space for 760+ avians (six buildings) for just 50 humans … even if that was before centaurs were discovered, they should have considered it a possibility that they might get a bunch of bug ferrets for employees or permanent liaisons later, and provided a means to easily switch a building between different septics’ “trunk lines” … converting an outright bug ferret “flat” into housing for Talita probably would’ve required to knock out three ceilings above, but. :-3
Enai
And now I’m wondering about the septic sytem on the Runaway. Does she just straightup have four or five separate septic tanks, to be dealt with at spaceports like RVs do (albeit with just one tank, how nice to have a biosphere that’s mostly compatible with itself)? Do space vessels just store demineralised water and mix the needed or desired salts in, depending on which sophont drinks it and just vent feces into space, like they do now? Would save on weight. What about urine? Used shower water (contains sweat, and thus salts. Do avians sweat cobalt salts)?Distill the water, store the salts and have the next spaceport deal with the toxic waste or just eject the dry residue?
Questions, questions.
JoB
> Questions, questions.
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Too many for me to give answers with sources, I’m afraid. :-3 (AFAICT any comment with more than one hyperlink goes straight to the moderation queue.)
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> Does [the Runaway] have four or five separate septic tanks
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There is a short comic about Talita having to show Sirawit how to use the Universal Toilet™ serving all, so I’d guess no.
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> Do space vessels just store demineralised water and mix the
> needed or desired salts in, depending on which sophont drinks it
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Dunno about drinking water, but another short shows Gillie asking for a snack and Bip telling her that they’ll have to fill up on phosphorus at the next port before she can have it. So at least the food comes from a “food printer” that actually is a Chemical Mystery Machine™.
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> Used shower water (contains sweat, and thus salts.
> Do avians sweat cobalt salts)?
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If Cheevwut is any indication (they likely aren’t :-3 ), avians shower quite sparingly and prefer “sand” baths. In the world of RttS, humans are infamous for being the Champions of Secretions™ (“oily poles”) among the sophonts. But no more specific info than that so far.
K
every time Talita is in a scene with a human, it always puts into perspective how big she actually is, I keep forgetting lol
Vinemaple
Not to mention that according to her bio, Idrisah is a 6’0″ athlete. Yes, Talita is even BIGGER than she looks, here! This also means Gillie isn’t short, she’s about average for a typ Human woman. She just looks petite next to Idrisah.
JoB
[looks at walk cycles]
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If Idrisah’s 183 cm tall, and Shyam is 144 as it says there, I’d say that Gillie’s about 165 cm (5’5″). Which is indeed the female average here (Germany, across all (adult) ages; note that neighboring Netherlands holds some world average-tallness records). YMMV.
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(I’m sort of a two-Idrisah sandwich, and used to be the shortest male in some of the courses I took at the U. :-3 )
Greenjoe
Yup, there’s a bug ferret on Gillie’s screen, wonder what they’re talking about…
SIGSTKFLT
Do we know what Ghille’s actual job? Other than it involves conversing with Bug Ferrets
JoB
Idrisah and Gillie both are xenolinguists and work for Ixion as translators for / negotiators in the respective alien languages¹. We know that on top of that, Idrisah also holds the main responsibility for the launch loop schedule; otherwise, particular tasks remain unknown.
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(¹ I’m saying “alien languages” here because while she’s fluent in ASL, I’m under the impression that she doesn’t get to use it much in her job – considering that she’s apparently wishing to be able to use it more with Dirtballers other than Idrisah (see RQ 5).)
Fallingfeather
I love Talita’s tucked up legs. :3
40
i read this as “fucked up legs” 😭😭😭
Graham_Cheshire
Love the vague details of Gillie’s workspace; the Bug-ferret posters, the figures in the shelves, the ‘South 69 Street’ sign lol.
Trees
Noice!
Teod
I suspect it’s not South but Spinward.
Enai
She went to university on earth. It wouldn’t be unusual for students to, um, “liberate” various road signs to keep as souvenirs or decoration from place(s) they visit. So if she studied somewhere in the former USA, why wouldn’t there have been a south 69th street?
gigithebear
i know it’s just a comic but whenever idrisah doesn’t have a head covering on i feel like i need to avert my gaze lmao
the Inmara
Our brain just insisted on reading her hair as an elaborate other kind of head covering, and we couldn’t make sense of it until reading your comment.
It’s obviously hair. It’s very well drawn hair. We’d just filed her away as “person who always wears and head covering” and our eyes refused to fully examine it. Brains are weird.
Coldest Lew
I think the polite thing is to ignore it.
Greebus
It must have been really gender-affirming for Talita when Idrisah let her around with her hijab off for the first time. I also love getting to see Gillie at her job. :O
Joysweeper
Gillie having her ears concealed but her tail out while on video call is fun. Very “going pantsless on Zoom”.
Phasma Felis
Business in the front, party in the back.
Guest
They’re such good friends 😭
Phasma Felis
I like the window-looking natural light panels on the wall in the last panel. IIRC, the other side of that wall is the hallway, so they’re not real windows.
Teod
No, i don’t think that’s right. See pages 113 and 121. The exit door is on the wall opposite of windows, in front of the couch. Left part of Gillie’s computer corner.
On a semi-related note: I noticed that runawaytothestars.com/comic gives a more compete overview than the site’s “archives” button, although it’s listed oddly (Chapters oldest first, but pages in chapters newest first) and there’s no button on the site that would lead there.
DasGanon
I’m not so sure. From what I can tell from 113-114 the TV & Gillie’s Computer setup are on the same wall as the Hallway door. The Couch is facing the TV, so the windows/panels are away from the hallway.
Now that said they’re absolutely not “natural” light in that the only ambient light the dome has is the artificial ones from the main column.
Additionally on the left window it looks like you can see opening mechanisms like hinges on the top and latches on the bottom.
Phasma Felis
Oh, yeah, you’re right. I’d remembered Gillie’s desk being the first thing you see coming in the door, with the kitchen on the left, but it’s actually the other way around.
And yeah, “natural” light in the sense of spectrum and brightness chosen to mimic sunlight. I saw pics of a windowless basement room where someone had set up full-spectrum LED panels behind gauzy curtains, driven by a gizmo that synced to the time of day, so if you didn’t look behind the curtains it *felt* like bright sunny windows. I was thinking something like that. Presumably the dome lights are a similar spectrum, or a compromise between Earth’s sun and the avians’.
Vik-Thor Rose
If Gillie’s work area was right by the door, Idrisah would not need to flick lights off/on to let Gillie know she was home?
Arcstone
SHE SO CUTEBIG
Vinemaple
Cozy, cozy, cozy!!
There are so many things I love about this page: Talita lounging half on the sofa, half on a mattress, with Idrisah sharing the sofa, is a really unique demonstration of just how BIG Talita is. Seeing her standing and talking to a human just doesn’t convey the scale the way this does. And her top looks so good on her! Even though it doesn’t fit *quite* right, it’s by far the most flattering human-style outfit we’ve seen her in yet. Bulging muscles, but… just casually. And then there’s that little tiny line over Talita’s left eye in the third panel… it is doing SO much work, and it’s not even diagetically *there!* That little line impresses me so much, I want to know how to see things that way!
Vinemaple
Oh, and, hey, look at the carpet, folks!
Gheesfellow
The scale provided is indeed a treat! You can’t appreciate it as easily in other compositions.
Lamprey
am i right in thinking this is the first time idrisah has had her hijab off “onscreen”? if so then kind of fitting considering talita was just talking about not having many real friends
Vinemaple
I think we’ve never seen her have the time to take it off once she’s home.
Phasma Felis
We saw it off when Gillie woke her up for the party. Not sure if that counts.
1d4Nadg
Gillie is her wife so i don’t think it counts, even the strictest use allows for it to be removed in front of your spouse as far as I know
JoB
Hmmmm, are Talita and Idrisah talking about the Runaway here? I suppose they should have this discussion on the clock if it were about work, but on the other hand, it’d be quite the embarassing reveal for “I don’t even have enough free time to turn you in like I should” Idrisah to now participate in the detailed planning. And for all she knows, that tablet Talita just handed her is Bips eyes and ears …