Is anyone else getting a sinking feeling?
Transcript
Doug: By the time we had arrangements for her here, it was easier to just–
He rubs the back of his head, gesturing with the other arm helplessly.
Doug: –Keep doing it, than find a clan with a matriarch willing to adopt.
Mel: Well, I hope I can provide her with some stability going into college.
The panel background is absent. A school of lanternfish flicker past in the inky blackness over Mel's head.
Mel: It was a hard enough transition for my two bio kids, but with her circumstances…
Doug: We’re thankful for your help. Jovia cuts foster sponsorship on her 18th birthday.
The window of the room no longer shows sun and leaves, but open black water. A deep-sea ray swims past. Otília checks her phone and frowns in irritation.
Otília: It’s been ten minutes. Should I bang on her door?
Doug smiles as Otília gets up from her chair.
Doug: Isn’t her room just above us on the second floor?
Otília: Oh– yes. Why?
The abyssal plane lurks behind the comic panel, sea cucumbers and brittle stars crawling languidly over the ooze.
58 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 216”
Gar G
Omg what? o.o
(gosh I love deep sea stuff too! <33)
Saw the bottom of the panel at thought "are those brittlestars?" then I scroll up and see everything else…)
Postmortem7581
I really love how the composition is unfolding in these pages: Mel surrounded by black waters populating more and more, Doug almost always visually close to the houseplant, top-down angles altering how our emotional position as the viewer is felt… I’m not experienced enough with composition analysis to really break it down, but the things I can recognise are really well executed. Well done!!
Ruby
“Young lady, I know you can hear us. Come join us down here, will you?”
Gomez
I wonder what would have happened to Talita if she hadn’t gotten sponsorship from someone. Would they let her starve on Jovia, deport her to the centaur homeplanet, something else?
JoB
Not outright starvation (see Jays comment further down this page), and likely not outright deportation, either (ibid.). Dropping to precariat – whatever that would look like for a sophont whose biochemistry is not generally supported locally – would be a possibility, though.
Sponsorship, as opposed to “closest kin has the responsibility”, seems to be most prominent in avian culture. I look at Cheevwuts CV and get a lively image of “what if they had not be able to afford those admin trainings” would have looked like …
zaratustra
It’s been mentioned somewhere that they were pushing her to take a job on the Jovian embassy on the centaur planet.
jade stormcloud
Aw shoot, I just got into this comic, and now I’m caught up! Can’t wait to read more. I hope we learn more about what her childhood was like. Was she kept at the care center until 15? or passed from foster home to foster home throughout? She must have had a very difficult time. Do any of the others who looked after her still keep in touch?
aves
There’s a bunch more content on the author’s Tumblr if you want more to read! (Also iirc, their Patreon has extra pages, if you’re able to support them there)
As far as Talita’s foster history goes, I think she grew up in a youth care facility and then moved into the teen home shown here. There’s a comic that touches on her move from one to other over on Tumblr – https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/664712613175934976/talitas-childhood-best-friend-and-teenage
Vinemaple
There are spoilers in some of these, but this page https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttSArt also has some free short comics about Talita’s childhood. Many of them are in a compilation called “Growth Chart,” which also includes more details about Centaurs and Talita’s life. There’s also the character AMAs, and sometimes people in the comments will link to 3-year-old posts from Jay’s Tumblr that are often enlightening and fascinating! Welcome to the fandom!
jade stormcloud
Thanks so much for this link. I’m getting spoiled on all of these characters but I love most of them so far and can’t wait to meet them in the comic.
cinna
Whoa, I didn’t even notice the gulper eel on the previous page until I went back after reading this one! I’m glad I did, because I adore how effectively the scenery sets the tone… a gradual reveal that creeps in until it encloses the page itself. Not only does it reinforce Doug’s intuition that Talita is listening in, with that sense of being watched (that lanternfish just turned to look me in the eye!), it’s also an interesting visual metaphor for why she hasn’t come to join them.
Here we see humans and their residence surrounded by the dark abyss of deepsea fish– uncanny creatures, familiar and enigmatic at once, shaped by wholly alien conditions. Herself surrounded in a world built for humans, how would it feel to be Talita in that room right then?
Brilliant storytelling.
astrobun
[muffled In Too Deep plays from downstairs]
guest
hello I am under the water please help me
Ellipsis
Well. Hm. His we get to learn whether Talita knew about the culling thing before this.
JoB
Doug: “… just whisper at the ceiling.”
Joysweeper
Otília doing the airplane ears…
Enai
Ooh, I was wondering if cat people could do that! Neat.
Peter Jensen
Gillie’s also doing it on this page:
https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-162/
Enai
Oh, I missed that. Thank you.
NTLS
OH GOD MY HEARTSTRINGS MY EVERYTHING
Tumorhead
Jay u watching the deep sea ROVs? A fellow ROV head?? 😀 this is just how it feels when you have a stream on the TV while hanging out lmao
Teod
I think I figured out the wayer thing, aside from the metaphor. This section is from Talita’s perspective. She’s listening to them through the floor, so their voices are dulled, like if they are underwater. This is also why there are more high angles than usual (I think?) – her perspective is from above, even though she’s not actually seeing them.
1d4-nadg
I thought it was just a metaphor for Mel feeling out of their depth. The water appeared on their pannels last page, and not when the others were talking.
Gheesfellow
Honestly, I thought this was some kind of mega aquarium around the room. 😅
It does make more sense as a metaphor, though.
Vinemaple
Yeah, I originally thought it was about Mel too, because of the previous page’s transcript, but yeah, this page made me feel like it’s Talita’s mental space that’s being metaphorically depicted. Good catch, with the perspective!
It makes far more sense for this to be a depiction of Talita’s teenage brooding, than some dark secret of Mel’s that’s being triggered. I wouldn’t ask Mel to so much as hold a bag open for me, but I don’t get the feeling that they’re a trauma survivor.
Hubert
Damn no one adopted her.
blythe
honestly was probably for the best, since female centaurs dont rly get attached to infants that arent their own. talita wouldve been last priority compared to the “actual” children, and still at high risk of being culled or abandoned. now there couldve been a chance for a mujash iank to have claimed her, or another male matriarch, but those are very uncommon.
furubatsu
I can’t remember if it was in a in-character QnA or not, but Talita does explain that there were A LOT of reasons she never expected to and was never (up until college) adopted; Primarily that she was a very expensive child to raise and while in the system she had the government pay for things like food and clothing (even if she had to get crafty in adjusting her clothing to fit her body), it’s expensive being an obligate carnivore in space and the meat she can eat would’nt even be the same meat a human can eat.
SquirrelGoblin
This comic just makes every day so much better. I want a shirt.
creatureofthelaboratory
and now he’s going to reveal that talita could hear them the whole time
Vinemaple
After 4 days of buildup. I can’t WAIT for Doug to just say, without even raising his voice, “You’ve heard everything we’ve said, right, poquinha?”
Guest
Sad to see Jovia also throws foster kids to the curb once they turn 18. I guess some things never change.
Jay Eaton
Jovia has a UBI and social housing programs for adults that have made homelessness in Nexus Jovia very uncommon, but life on only UBI living in a cheap government dormitory is hard enough for a human. Talita needs more accommodation than is available through government safety nets alone, and she doesn’t want to move to the homeplanet where her cost of living would be cheaper but she has no social connections. Outside financial support was what allowed her to go to a Jovian college and maintain a higher standard of living without having to fight a mountain of bureaucracy that doesn’t understand why she doesn’t just want to “go back to where she came from.”
Maned Wolf
walter-and-jessie-looking-at-bowing-ceiling.jpg
Honeysprings
😂
Zuorai
The one fish looking down at Mel. I wonder what that means
Also I’m in love with Talita’s catmom
Sabella
What, that Mel doesn’t exactly have Talita’s best interests in mind? That they’ve been building a gilded cage for her all this time?
Teod
I don’t think they’re malicious. But they might want to feel like they’re helping more than to actually help. Most of the time there is no difference between the two, but the points where there is are really painful.
blythe
tbh i really dont like how people are quick to demonise Mel. Yes they fall short in a lot of places but theyre not a *bad* person by any means. They couldve simply refused the opportunity to foster once they figured how difficult itd be. Not to mention its not like Talita herself is without flaws either, and we hear most about Mel from her point of view.
Enai
Yes. Mel is a flawed individual and apparently not *nearly* as good at dealing with people as they’d like to think, but not malicious.
.
Not every minor antagonist is evil or even just indifferent. One can be *entirely good-willed* and still harm another person.
Joysweeper
Yeah people are really just jumping and leaping to put the most cruel possible interpretation on each of their lines. I really don’t think they’re a bad person whose selfishness shows through each and every interaction. More a flawed one who’s good in some ways and quite terribly inadequate in others.
gnome_artificer
Moral ambiguity and nuance, in the fiction I read? How dare Jay. I demand that all characters a clearly labeled paragons of good, or the worst villains ever. Their actions and intentions are irrelevant. / I’m being sarcastic in case it isn’t clear.
Sabella
Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying as Mel being Pure Evil. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I see Mel doing a lot of things for Talita, but never really asking for her input on anything. She never looks comfortable with the decisions being made for her that just so happen to also benefit Mel’s standing in the galactic community.
DanielBro
can someone remind me why we are supposed to dislike Mel in the first place?
Kyrean
Not to spoil, but some of us are also bringing to this discussion ambivalence towards Mel due to reading ahead on Patreon.
Mel may be well-meaning, but there are some definite question marks to how often intent matches impact… and whether they actually intent to do good by everyone, or just to appear like they do.
Vinemaple
Yes! Finally, Mel nuance in the comments! You love to see it!
Enai
I would dispute that Mel tries to build a “gilded cage” for Talita, for the following reasons:
a) they’re her manager, not her employer. Talita continuing to work for Ixion does not benefit them personally – they would remain just as employed and paid if Talita left and Ixion was forced to hire some other engineer for the scrap yard.
b) and relatedly: we do not see Talita performing any kind of service for Mel, and I assume if she were, Jay would have shown some kind of hint. So, gilded cage to make Talita do *what, exactly* for Mel? They don’t even seem to hang out with her during non-work hours.
c) Just because Talita feels like she’s trapped on Dirtball and like she owes a debt to Mel for referring her to this employer doesn’t make Mel responsible for those feelings. They probably really just tried to do her a solid with her first job out of college.
And, most importantly, d) just because Talita feels trapped doesn’t make it so. She has worked for Ixion for 10 years, and has a good degree from a good college, making her a desirable employee for any company equipped to employ centaurs (you know, what with the specific dietary and livibg space needs that brings). That may not be all companies, but there’s bound to be many. Mel knows this. Trying to make her more comfy on Dirtball, if indeed they’re trying to do that with the remodel and possible employment of more centaurs, just makes good business sense for Ixion. Talita is a key employee, after all, and those ought to be kept happy. That doesn’t make it a cage – for that, leaving needs to be artificially hard, like if she had a restrictive contract or was even physically restrained from leaving. She isn’t, at least not any more than any other employee that we can see.
.
So, where does this “gilded cage” thing come from? I see that phrase used for abused spouses or employees in Arab nations, where the kafala system allows your employer to restrain you from leaving the country without their permission, leading to all sorts of horrific abuses.
Sabella
I think maybe you missed the part where Mel is looking to surprise Talita with Centaur-accommodating facilities. And before that, right in the first chapter, her generally not enjoying her job as a manager herself. And around the same time, the strong implication that Calcery got himself shipped off Dirtball in part because they couldn’t stand to be around Mel any longer. There’s a VERY telling line from the AI in that same panel: “As attentive as they act, I’m not sure Mel is ever actually listening.” I don’t think Jay is including these details purely to provide slice-of-life texture.
Mel comes off to me like someone that’s convinced themselves they’re a good person by throwing around lots of money to charitable causes, but hasn’t done the actual work of meeting people on their own level and listening to their needs. Instead of actually talking with Talita to see why she’s unhappy, they’re doing what they’ve always done and are throwing money at the problem.
Keep in mind, the title of the story is “Runaway To The Stars”, not “Stay On Dirtball Because Everything Here Is Perfectly Fine”.
Enai
Yes, and? None of that makes Mel a person who schemes to trap Talita in a golden cage, let alone from the point in time this page represents. It just makes them a bit self-centered, and arguably a bad manager.
Sabella
And you don’t think Mel’s actions at all come from a place of feeling like there’s benefit to keeping Talita around? Why go out of their way to pull strings and build those facilities for Talita?
Sabella
I’d also like to add that “gilded cage” doesn’t exclusively refer to overtly abusive situations like the ones you’ve described. It’s more generally about places where one feels compelled to stay because of a lack of options where ones material needs are met. “Superficially attractive but nevertheless constraining…something characterized by the limitations of material wealth.” Like a place of employment where one just so happens to live and have all their biological needs met, but otherwise makes them miserable.
Enai
And that is Ixion Corp’s fault, not Mel’s. They are still just a middle manager, muddling through and sometimes failing at their well-intentioned goals.
Sabella
I don’t understand why you’re so defensive of Mel when they’re an agent of Ixion and clearly acting on their behalf. It’s naive to think so much effort is being put to keep Talita on Dirtball exclusively for her benefit. Avian society doesn’t strike me as quite so altruistic.
Enai
What makes you think I am arguing that Mel builds the (probable) centaur accomodations for Talita’s sole benefit? The (probable) new centaur employees need living quarters, and that’s as good a reason as any to invest in an appropriately sized apartment for Talita, too. Of course Ixion Corp is only inclined to undertake such renovations when they become necessary.
.
And employee retention efforts in the form of trying to make a key engineer more comfortable still do not a golden cage make.
.
So, let me ask you: What makes you think that Mel is some evil mastermind who planned to trap Talita in a remote job for a corporation Mel doesn’t even work for yet years before Talita graduated school, let alone college? She is like 17 or something right now. That sounds a little bit insane to me.
.
Besides, what does *Mel* gain in this putative scheme? As I said, they’d be just as employed if the engineer they managed was literally any other sophont.
.
So, to answer your question: I defend them because they are not the evil master(?!?)mind the commentariat seems to make them out as. I do not believe this is the sort of comic where evil mastermind – type characters exist. Okay, maybe the Tiiliit’s most trusted advisors. But they’re literal light years away.
Sabella
So the problem is you’re reading far more hostility toward Mel than was intended. Please re-read my original post. All I said was they don’t exclusively have Talita’s best interests in mind and are building a guilded cage for her. I was hoping people would understand the power dynamics at play, and the benefit Ixion would have in having a Centaur employee, that people would see how the problems in this story are informed by the problems we have now.
Also it’s deeply insulting to insinuate that I came to this conclusion on Mel’s character by way of consensus. My assessment of them is informed purely by text, and my experiences working for corporations, and the kind of haute rich corpos that work for them that play at being nice when everything they do is calculated.
Mel’s not an “evil mastermind” as you put it, they’re a cog in the machine, and no less responsible for their role in its operation. You really should question why you’re so quick to cape for someone just because they’re nice about making sure Talita stays put, and why it’s hard for you to accept Mel’s obvious flaws as a person.
The fact that Talita’s needs seem to take a back seat when people are defending Mel’s actions is telling of itself really.
Enai
Wow, where to start?
You omitted the “all this time”. Insinuating that Mel planned to trap Talita in a dead-end job on a backwater planet before she even reached adulthood is frankly absurd. Hence “evil mastermind”.
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And you still haven’t said what *Mel* gets out of this putative scheme.
So spell it out for me: what power dynamics are pertinent here? Simply the employer-employee divide does not suffice for “gilded cage” allegations. How is a centaur employee so much more useful than an AI with a fleet of vehicles, or a human? I’d argue a solitary centaur is less profitable than a human or avian, because you have to expend resources (separate septic system and agriculture, as well as appropriately sized living quarters) on them you wouldn’t if you employed a human or avian.
I did not say you reached your conclusions because others agree with you. I said I saw that many people agreed with you and wanted to express my disagreement.
Mel is a middle manager. They are not rich, let alone “haute rich”. You may be projecting a bit there.
Yes. I’m glad we agree. No-one called them anything else.
Cape for them, do I? Just because I don’t believe they’re trying to “build a gilded cage” for Talita does not make me their #1 fan. Or cape.
.
And again, employee retention efforts do not a gilded cage make. H1B visas in real-life USA do, as does the law around foreign workers in certain Arab countries. Or being trapped in a marriage to a rich person while not being rich oneself, and eligible for nothing in the divorce.
Talita is a capable adult. As I said, she’s well within her rights to leave any time she chooses, work somewhere else, even just go on an extended vacation (wasn’t there a comic where some character told her she ought to use her time off?)
.
In short: she is not dependend on Mel. Well done them for ensuring this is so, by supporting her through college. However imperfect that support was, Talita has a skillset that’s so desirable, it made business sense for a corporation to build an entire mini-ecosystem just to keep her alive and healthy working for them. To reiterate: if she sends out a few résumés, she could be gone and gainfully employed elsewhere within weeks, months at most. And Mel helped empower her to do that.
.
Do you have any idea how rare it is for a person from foster care to even attempt college, let alone graduate with a master’s degree? This is not because foster alumni are dumber than children whose parents graduated college, but because they’re less supported. Even just having somebody to talk to when you’re struggling, somebody who can say “talk to your prof/adviser/ombudsperson about this” or something helps immeasurably. Or tips on how to find study groups. And Mel, with all their flaws and imperfections, provided that.
Enai
Oh no, blockquote fail -_-
I trust you can tell which paragraphs are quoted from your post and which are my replies.
Eux
gosh this is such a cool amount of imagery!!!!!!