Time to peel that bone.
Transcript
Gillie opens her palms towards Talita and wiggles her hands in the air, Deaf applause. Talita smiles, flustered but proud.
Gillie: (ASL) It's not the same, but I can totally tell you're making question faces!
Talita: (English) That’s a relief.
She rubs her face, noticing the velvet on her antler is itching. She asks Gillie a "WH" question with her approximation of furrowed eyebrows.
Talita: (ASL) Where’s the trash can?
Gillie: (ASL) Yeah, like that!
Talita: (ASL) No, actual question.
Gillie: (ASL) Oh! Over there.
Gillie points off to her side. In the distance beyond both of them, Idrisah can be seen praying on a rug.
64 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 195”
leslie
i just found this story through a couple pages on a tumblr post and I absolutely love it, I couldn’t put it down, had to read it straight through today! Looking forward to diving into the other material about this world and following the story as it continues!!
JoB
Whatever liberties Idrisah may take in her praying, she sure left her shoes at quite a distance from that …
evileeyore
The better to touch grass with…
JoB
I see two pairs of shoes, not socks (other than on Gillie’s feet) …
thegriffin88
Right, despite the location they’re antlers not tusks and antlers grow in with velvet. This might get messy that stuff is very vascular even when it’s ready to shed.
Stray Cat
Look at Talita, using her new ASL knowledge to ask Gillie a question unrelated to the lesson! She’s a good student, after all.
Kitty
It’s so sweet how surprised and happy Talita looks every time she gets positive reinforcement from Gillie.
hessian
her little chubby cheeked smile :]
Fallingfeather
Oh!!! Is that Idrisah praying in the background?
Starway
Can you imagine the calculations to get the right angle? Probably misaligned by the time she’s finished
Crow
There was a qna question about the angles a while ago I think. If i remember correctly, most spacers use a fixed direction, but there’s an app for determining where ecca is in space.
Varyon
They need portable prayer turrets that auto-orient and stay pointing toward Mecca once you turn them on (in some places, this makes prayer into an extreme sport due to the turret functioning as a centrifuge). Actually, once you get far enough for light lag to be significant, do you pray toward where Mecca is now or where it was when the light that’s reaching you now bounced off Earth?
Fallingfeather
I totally get what you mean, but “prayer turret” is a hilarious mental image.
thegriffin88
She said in the last chapter she’s agnostic so if she’s doing this for tradion’s sake: close enough.
The Opossum Witch
Ye! a few pages back you can see an idrasah shaped speck praying in the overhead shot!
JoB
Blanche+Tony bonding moment in 5, 4, 3, …
¡!¡!¡!
two of my favorite facial expressions on this page!! happy-fluff-blushy talita and gillie going >:333
Ruby
Oh yeah, it’s satisfying visual time
MyUniverseinaBox
Talita is so pretty 🥺
Appleeatinggoat
‘No, actual question’ I’M DYINGG
Madame Thunderbone
Why does she not simply eat the velvet? My husband eats his peeled foot calluses and I feel like that’s probably roughly equivalent levels of edibility. Then again, also equivalent levels of nasty to have to watch.
The Opossum Witch
Probably for those same reasons. Talita was raised culturally human so she probs thinks thats kinda grody. Also it’s blood and flesh so imo it seems closer to like eating the skin off a skinned knee
Toad Aix
Your husband what.
¿?¿?¿?
thank you for sharing
holly...!
your husband does what???
JoB
> that’s probably roughly equivalent levels of edibility.
Actually, assumed that Talitas velvet compares to that of Terran cervids in that respect, it should be far more nutritional than humans’ epidermis. After all, its main job was to funnel enough nutrients into the growing antler for them to form in a matter of mere weeks, rather than having served as an ablative protective layer of mostly-defunct cells for the entire time it took to build up a callus.
… having that said, get your husband a pumice stone. Tearing a “grown” callus off carries a risk of the tear accidentally going too deep. (Which becomes an ever-bigger problem with age, or if diabetes is involved.)
Madame Thunderbone
Duly noted.
Varyon
I typically used to mostly cut my calluses off with a good sharp knife, but sometimes it would need finished off with some peeling and this did indeed run the risk of going too deep and tearing living cells. Rather than a pumice stone, I opted for a pedi-egg, which is basically like a cheese grater for your foot; it has the advantage of capturing the shavings for later disposal rather than having them add to the room’s dust (or I guess Madam Thunderbone’s husband could sprinkle it on his food like parmesan cheese). I think it leaves a rougher finish than a stone would, but most pedi-eggs have a spot to attach what amounts to sandpaper for smoothing it out if that matters.
wingedhorror
I’m… You… Your husband… I… I’m sorry… WHAT sort of animal did you marry?
JoB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A4nner_sind_Schweine
(Look up the lyrics, too. 😉 )
Madame Thunderbone
One who is in most ways a perfect gentleman save for one utterly disgusting but otherwise harmless bad habit.
40
BROTHER
INFANTEATER
your husband does WHAT……
hirsch
i think you might be in no place to question it, Infant Eater
thegriffin88
…………………….. You seriously don’t think that’s weird?
Madame Thunderbone
I mean, obviously it’s weird, and kind of gross, but it never struck me as enough of a problem to argue with him over.
thegriffin88
Fair. Lol.
TotallySomebody
Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!
Electrum
Does bio-waste like peeled skin/flesh need special disposal?
Light_In_The_Fog
If talita lived with a bunch of other centuars, maybe? But none of the bacteria that could eat her bio-waste could be dangerous to anyone else who lives on Dirtball (for now) so I imagine its probably fine?
JoB
Depends entirely on the surroundings, I suppose. The hypodermic needle used in a doctor’s office goes into a puncture-proof biohazard container, lest it infects other already-ill people around with whatever, the wad of gauze I tear off once I’m back home from the sampling goes into the general trash (which is also bound for the incinerator where I live), but if I were to contract a bleeding wound while hiking through a forest or somesuch, I doubt that I’d care much about the dangers of what’s gone out of my body …
(There’s a reason why single-use plastic gloves are a mandatory item in our road-code-compliant first-aid kits, though.)
Peter Jensen
While their habitat does have separate water/waste water treatment for different species to account for differences in biology, I suspect most other trash just gets incinerated (or some equivalent process) and dumped or turned into chemical feedstock. Diseases or “wrong kind of molecule” problems won’t be a factor then.
hurgaburga
https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Characters/talitaantlervelvet.png
leak for the next page:
(spoiler, not actual leak for the next page)
f0xx0rzz
im glad someone linked it, i was thinking of this one too!!
hessian
thought of this scene immediately. i cant believe it made it to the actual comic haha!!
forest @ swifty's hq!
her goofy lil smile in top right… love you talita forever
Greebus
I knew it! She’s gonna peel her bone!
Gheesfellow
I love Binnie Gillie!
Eux
gillie’s little gremlin teeths. i bet she’ll enjoy watching talita peel off the velvet.
Apollo235
I love the face Gillie makes when she says “Yeah like that!” shes so gremlin
Also why is Idrisah so far away for her prayer? is it just preference or is it part of the form?
furubatsu
Maybe for Talita’s comfort? Less people, less risk of feeling judged?
T-Bird
I’m not a praying person myself, but I think I’d find it difficult to focus with a language lesson going on like three feet away
Enai
Also, why sit right on top of your friend’s language lesson if the entire park is empty? The dome doesn’t have too vast amounts of space as it is already, so it’s best to enjoy what room you have.
Vinemaple
HERE IT COMES but also, to my surprise, folks were right about that being Idrisah praying in the background. As a USAmerican, it’s refreshing to see that she feels completely safe praying in public The few Muslims I’ve known and worked with all had to find somewhere private to do their prayers, because even before 9/11, the harassment and unintentionally disrespectful questioning they’d get boggles belief.
And then next week we’ll all find out that she’s been doing yoga.
Vinemaple
“And then next week we’ll all find out that she’s been doing yoga” Note to self: always read the transcript before commenting.
un_pogaz
Talita next page: **RIP**
Gillie: O.O
Acro
I wonder what the custom is around shedding velvet (or the centaur equivalent) on the centaur homeworld. If the rumoured new hires were to show up right now and see Talita peeling hers off into a trash can, would they be like, “Ew, don’t do that in public” or would it be perfectly normal to them? Are there biohazard concerns?
Carmenifold
it’d vary between cultures of course, but i’m guessing it’d be seen as about as rude as trimming your fingernails in public, or maybe picking your nose. idk tho
Crow
There’s a section on that on the centaur lore page! Can’t remember if it’s on culture or biology, probably culture. Some cultures collect their shed velvet in as whole a piece as possible then make it in to a blanket or scroll of sorts, using them to catalogue years. I think sometimes it’s also just tossed or used as a sort of vellum paper.
JoB
Oh, indeed, I forgot about that – it’s on the respective “World” page here, too.
Teod
I wonder if Yao would want to have them. The shape is basic, but they seem to have an interesting texture.
40
TEEHEE SHES LOCKED IN. SHE WAS STILL SAYING ASL FOR A LEGIT COMPLETELY UNRELATED QUESTION
JoB
Well, after a momentary slip in panel two, that is …
WoomySans
Aw yeah, it’s peeling time!