Generally it's inappropriate to ask your coworkers about their bodily functions, even if you think their seasonal face bones are cool...
Transcript
Yao: Oh, the velvet came off your antlers.
Talita looks down at Yao's snap-on antlers.
Talita: …Yeah?
Yao: Was it bloody and painful?
Talita pauses vacuuming and rubs her arm awkwardly.
Talita: Er… there’s… blood… But it doesn’t hurt when the skin comes off. After the bone finishes growing, there’s not really any pain receptors left.
Adam, who is standing to her left, looks up at her resentfully.
117 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 227”
Jackie
“Inappropriate to ask your coworkers about their bodily functions”
To be fair I didn’t even think more of it then asking someone about their nails or hair until noticing the panel designs/description…. Which I guess are technically bodily functions but normal to talk about. Just typically without the blood.
Pobuos
IMO Yao seems like the kind of person who looks out the window of the car when the driver says they just passed by a car wreck. But xey also seem like the kind of person to collect bones xey find in the woods. Adam is like one of those tourists who go to one of those parks with wild monkeys everywhere and start taunting the monkeys. It’s a totally different thing
un_pogaz
I’m torn between: “Oh my God, Adam, don’t do anything stupid.” and “Oh my God, please Adam, do something stupid that the big giant centaur break you in a legimat sef-defence move.”
Annie Moose
Adam… go away. No one wants you there. Just let Talita and Yao have some bonding time. And maybe some day in the future, Yao will be wearing Talita’s antlers on xer head. Like future bestie accessories!
jasper
I wouldn’t call this bonding… this is inappropriate and uncomfortable. I wouldn’t ask a coworker who has allergies if it hurts and bleeds when their reactions give them contact dermatitis that peels. It’s invasive. This reminds me more of something like racial fetishisation than it does two people bonding over a shared interest, because it isn’t a shared interest at all. It’s a completely regular feature of Talita’s body that Yao’s being invasive about because xey find it cool.
Bryn
Im glad this is getting pointed out bc this was my read too! Xe is being insensitive asking an invasive question, even if potentially xe wants to bond with talita…. although, atp maybe yao simply wants to ask talita questions about antlers, being a horn/antler fan….. its hard to say right now.
thegriffin88
Telling me my genuine curiosity is rude and invasive and to get away you freak is why I no longer talk to people.
Skadoosh
A more appropriate, non-invasive way for Yao to ask about it would have been “I’m really curious what it feels like when the velvet comes off. Are you willing to talk about it?” or anything in that direction.
thegriffin88
That’s like me being into Avians because I like wings. My fursona is half a bird. You can’t tell me to not be interested in something that’s basically telling someone not to be gay.
Bryn
I understand youve had bad experiences but no one is saying that stuff to you (refering to the ‘get away you freak’ which sounds awful to experience but no one has said that about yao), people are simply pointing out how its insensitive and yao couldve googled it etc. luckily this is a fictional comic showing different frictions between different people so theres no reason i would tell you not to be interested in avians! If you were a character in rtts asking avians intrusive questions maybe the avians would have some feelings about being objects of fascination themselves. Not everyone appreciates being asked invasive questions. And thats okay! Its okay to not want to be asked personal questions its doesnt mean people are bad……
thegriffin88
Everything leading up to this page has said Talita’s about to put in her two weeks notice so maaayyyybbbeeeee hold off on the bestie thing.
The Opossum Witch
You’ve heard of microaggressions, get ready for a macroaggression
Storm
God what bull is Adam about to say
AmbroseTV
those buttons on talita’s shirt are pretty small… i wonder if she has a tool to help with buttoning shirts, especially when she’s complained about tiny switches and grippy medicine caps
Adrienne
Maybe they’re snaps? Because that does look tedious…
Peter Jensen
Oooh, maybe the kind with magnets? They hold in place pretty well until pulled exactly right, and fastening is just moving them near each other. I’ve seen people modify shirts like that for use by people with reduced dexterity.
AmbroseTV
oooo that would be good
Eux
the wiggly background of the AWKWARD AURA cast on this conversation is incredible.
i love yao. xem and clinton are fave temps.
Accursed Dirt Boar
Adam’s super meter is reaching full capacity, soon he will unleash an EX Special Slur
evileeyore
Nooo…. I think he’s aiming for worse. He’s got that super terrible “I’m thinking of some way to smash your face in an ‘accident’ to break your ‘tusks’ because now that I know it won’t ‘hurt’ it won’t be ‘an issue’ and I can get my racism on” face.
He’s still spoiling for payback, and that requires more than just saying something racist and stupid.
Avalon Ranger
OSHA Villager 9000 over here about to be The Worst I fear 🙄
badabingle
awwww poor yaos just trying to somehow relate with xer cool big boss. 😭😂
godspeed
Noooo, Yao I was rooting for you.
I believe that Yao is genuinely interested and non judgemental about Talita in general, but this is literally the worst way and time to ask this.
(Not saying that I am not familiar with that level of social awkwardness but yeah.)
cain
this is an incredibly awkward conversation to witness but I do really like Yao here
izimb
Xey are relateable in that “I want to bond over my interest” way. At least that is how I read it at the moment.
thegriffin88
It’s forward but I guess I’m like that and have violently given up on being subtle. Look, some questions like things about the opposite sex aren’t going to get answered without being direct. Ask me anything about the female body I’ve got one right here.
Oupy
Feel like the behavior of Yao is being commented on a bit strangely. This is like asking for intimate details on your boss’s period cycle or something, it isn’t just “autistic interest” it is completely inappropriate and not ok. It isn’t like asking about their interests because of a t-shirt
Aaron
It’s kind of hard to say since it’s all speculative fiction, but I’m surprised that this is being treated as a taboo subject now. Previously we’ve seen Tal casually peeling off her velvet in public and throwing it away in a trash can, and we’ve seen her randomly shed an antler and offer it to Idrissah just because she happened to be standing there. It seems like Yao only asked if it was “bloody and painful” because xey’re into that heavy metal vibe. But aside from that it doesn’t seem like this subject is much more intimate to Talita than asking about someone’s haircut. Which seems to me like the level of awkwardness that this could be realistically compared to, like a white person asking a black person “Is it difficult to make your hair do that?”
Tye
No I totally agree with you. Yao’s behavior here is wrong. If xey were actually interested in knowing if the process was painful xey can just use a search engine or be more polite. I think if xey said “I’m sorry, that must have been painful.” I think xey would get a lot further with that. The people “tee-hee”-ing about this are exactly the kind of people Talita would want to avoid speaking to. I am also not a fan of how many people want Adam to call her a slur so bad… like why would you want that? Do we really need him to say that for us to REAAAALLY know he’s not a great person? It’s really weird.
thegriffin88
Ok but maybe she doesn’t know the antlers are related to breeding. Centaurs have been known to humans longer than she’s been alive. They’re almost never seen among humans so unless you’re into xenobiology why research that? People don’t just inately know things. Like how to break the ice with a total stranger. WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO HAVE BEEN BORN KNOWING THAT BULLSHIT.
Septemberdale
That’s the thing, most people *are* born knowing “that bullshit”. It’s not something most people, even people who were restricted from social interaction beyond the survival minimum for convenience purposes (as is sadly somewhat common in America, where I am from) need to learn, we just know, and do it flawlessly from the moment we’re physically-developed enough to speak (language itself is a learned skill, but the manners surrounding it are purely instinctive!), like how kittens can swivel their ears to focus on a sound from as soon as their ears perk up.
That’s literally what makes autism outside the norm, it’s the (somewhat rare!) phenomenon when people aren’t born knowing all the social interactions.
jfc
>’rare’
>looks inside
>globally as common as redheads
yall do this with intersex people too and its absurd. you CANNOT be saying this neurotyp baby
thegriffin88
AND YOU THINK THAT MAKES IT OKAY TO MARGINALIZE ME? FOR ASKING QUESTIONS? TO CALL ME A FREAK AND SHOVE ME IN A LOCKER? I’M NOT THAT SHY KID ANYMORE I’M OUT FOR BLOOD NOW YOU OVER PRIVILEGED BALLSACK.
SheTheTDE
I think I’m starting to like this one.
Ruby
I like how the background in the 2nd and 3rd panels shows the awkwardness o the conversation lol
Julienne
Thank you for the birthday gift of Update (it’s my birthday and we got an update EEEEEEEE)
Redacted
“Oh my God Yao you can’t just ask people if it’s bloody and painful”
Napkinkat
Yao the noticer
I love xem <3 xey’re so goofy but also xey need to learn how to not weird their cross-species foster boss out. I hope Talita isn't too bothered by xeir questions lol
Are Yao’s antlers real like lab grown antlers/antlers off of a real animal or plastic/some other material? I am very curious. I assume real animal antler would be very expensive in space like wood!
Sparky Lurkdragon
Yo, heads up that “X the noticer”/”Noticing” is an antisemetic dogwhistle.
As for Yao, I’m fond of xem, too. Xer the kind of awkward I tend to be unless I’m actively trying not to be. Good question about xer horn and antler collection! Adam calls them “jewelry” earlier, which, there is cheap jewelry, but I wonder if that might point to being real animal? Not sure we kind find out outside of AMA/Word of Jay, though.
Tim M
Had to look this up… gonna rate this one a “nah” out of 10. Looks like something that originally came out of 4chan and was originally used for 4channish things, but then escaped containment and became very generic and anodyne. I think your intent is good here but I don’t think that everything that came out of 4chan is automatically an antisemitic dogwhistle. (And they don’t get to keep words just because they licked them.)
freak on a leash
It really actually is. I think concept clues make it obvious that thats not what this person is saying about Yao but Elon Musk and his cult are doing #noticing shit all the time, it’s maybe 2% more common to spell it as “nooticing” in that context but this is a real phenomenon & dogwhistle
bryn
Yao maybe couldve picked a better time instead of after the high stress altercation with adam talita just went through lmao 😭🥺
bryn
oops that was supposed to be its own comment ;;; also thank you for sharing about the antisemitic dogwhistle!!! ew!!!!
Anna Hladíková
Seconding the “assholes don’t get to keep words/symbols/etc. just because they licked them”.
I live in the Czech Republic. We are a free democratic nation, and there is no longer support for communism, but we have the same flag still as communist Czechoslovakia (an authoritarian regime with a history of sentencing political dissidents to unpaid labor in uranium mines) had, because it is a perfectly serviceable flag, and as you said, you can’t just throw away everything just because someone evil touched it.
If an entire communist government cannot ruin a flag, then dickheads on the internet can’t ruin an ordinary word that’s not an insult.
Napkinkat
ITS A WHAT
OH MY GOD I GENUINELY DID NOT KNOW THANKS FOR NOTIFYING ME
I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY BECAUSE XEY NOTICE STUFF 😭
God I hate how mundane dogwhistles can be to the point of people accidentally using them. I am very much NOT antisemitic
Napkinkat
For context when I was typing it I originally worded it as ‘Yao the observer’ but I thought it sounded weird so I changed it 😭
Napkinkat
Makes sense that I didn’t know tho cause I’ve never stepped foot on 4chan and I don’t use Twitter and I genuinely hate Elon. Apologies if anyone mistook this as me legit using a dog whistle when that was NOT the intention. I find yao relatable cause when I was a little neurodivergent kid I would pull this same stuff when I took notice of something the average person wouldn’t think much about or think to comment on. Which was what the phrase was meant to be about. Oof
APOLOGIES JAY FOR DERAILING THE COMMENTS A BIT
JoB
> I originally worded it as ‘Yao the observer’
Considering the actual Nazis’ favorite newspaper, I would’ve considered that the worse option … if the question of right extremist subtexts had come up there as well. 😐
1d4-nadg
It’s ok, nobody thought you were antisemitic. Like, look at the comic we are reading here, it’s not the kind of stuff most bigots would enjoy
Vinemaple
Is what I think is about to happen SERIOUSLY going to happen, this way, on the very next page?
bryn
LOL
previous pages *makes observation/prediction* monkey paw *finger curls menacingly*
Mango The Captain
Oh, I bet I know exactly what adam’s going to say…
Sabella
Yeah this is more the kind of weird neurodivergent question I was expecting Yao to ask. Metal while still being empathetic to pain.
Also damn Adam is looking like he REALLY wants to have an HR moment.
Napkinkat
I wonder if Human Resources would have its name changed? I assume it would be the same department dealing with multiple sophont species or maybe there would be separate departments for each sophont that work together. SR (Sophont ressources)
Sabella
Honestly yeah probably. I just went for the idiom people would immediately understand.
But yeah, SR moment incoming.
JoB
We’ve discussed retconning the acronym to “Hired Resources” previously … 😉
eden
and she knew to call them antlers too! next time ask to ask though yao lol
Sabella
It’s the nice thing to do, please and thank you Yao.
eden
*xe, my bad!
forest @ swifty's hq
adam seems like he is about to be a kind and gentle soul
veltzeh
Adam you better not be thinking about grabbing Talita’s antler. 🙁
Adrienne
It would be bad but he’d be super fired. Or one hopes… Adam is going to do something shitty either way so may there be repercussions for him 🙏
thegriffin88
Adam, it looks like you have something stupid to say.
Chase Wanderstar
I suspect he often does.
Sabella
Must be a day that ends in Y.
Lilybug
I really don’t have a good feeling with Yao. I’d love to give xem the benefit of the doubt… but idk man. Xer vibe is off. If I was Talita, I’d be skedaddling the hell out of there.
Phasma Felis
I feel like Yao’s vibe is mostly just autism. The kind where you ask inappropriate questions so people decide you’re the Devil.
cain
🤝
Enai
Yeah, Yao gives off the vibe of “actually internally vibrating because of all the socializing xey’d do if xey hadn’t been rejected like, soo much as a child for being weird or offputting, but without bad intentions”. Or, for short, some flavour of neurodivergent and awkward.
whirly
i agree that Yao seems to mean well and is probably just autistic, but Talita’s experiences here are very racialized. constantly staring at her and only speaking to her to ask a TMI question in front of everyone else is still a microaggression even if xey don’t realize xey’re being racist.
Enai
If we’re being pedantic, anti-centaur racism requires a systemic power structure that discriminates against centaurs. Merely insensitive behaviour or even prejudice is not enough, else the whole “red haired people have no souls” nonsense would be racism.
Also: how is Talitas experience racialized? I’d think the experience of disabled people, especially users of electric wheelchairs (can’t fit through doorways, environments may not even be sturdy enough for your weight) is a much closer analogue.