Talita feels the world closing in around her. Gillie feels the thrilling success of tricking the largest governmental body in the galaxy.
Transcript
Talita, finished attaching the robotic hand, leans on an elbow on the nose rig of the frontloader and slumps her face against her palm in exhausted resignation.
Talita: Easier said than done. I have so few people in my social circle, I can't afford to burn bridges. And now you and Gillie are going back to Nexus Jovia… And I'm helping Bip leave in a convoy to Nexus Jovia... And I'm still stuck here.
On Gillie's laptop screen, the BFGC web portal page is displaying the approval status of customs tracking number. It rolls over from "pending" to "shipping batch approved."
Gillie: Haha!
She pumps a fist in the air in triumph and signs to Idrisah, grinning.
Gillie: (ASL) They approved the convoy! The ship can go through!
Idrisah looks between her and Talita in nervous silence. Gillie's smile falls in confusion.
71 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 235”
Jordan Aster
I know what it’s like to feel stuck and to only have a very small social circle (In my case, nonexistent.) But I haven’t found a spaceship yet that can take me away.
Heather
All of these characters are written so believably and compassionately. Talita has it rough, no doubt, but she also FEELS more trapped than she actually is. Who hasn’t been there?? Incredible work.
Phasma Felis
Oh no, you hate it here and all your friends are leaving in a roomy, private starship. How ever could you resolve this
evileeyore
Idrisah and Gillie aren’t leaving with Bip. Their leaving separately, and leaving /to/ something takes planing (which we haven’t been shown) and they have a social network to support them where their going (even if it’s “being human in a human place”)….
Poor Talita just sees her word shrinking and I don’t think anyone but Bip has offered her a lifeline, and I think Bip has done so in a long while… but Bip, now might be the time. Strike while the iron is hot.
LittleRedRidingNerd
Oh look! Talita is comfortable around them she doesn’t feel the need to tuck her trunk anymore
Apollo235
Oh boy its the me number page! Cant wait to see wha– 🙁
creetur
The ruffled neck feathers.. she looks so weary
girls, please take her with you..
hold bird like hamburger
increasingly i automatically perceive whatever camera bip’s currently attached to as their “real” face, and their avatar as just a sock puppet stuck onto their metaphorical hands. my eye contact instinctively goes to wherever is their most noticeable camera (or failing that, the “hand”, “front” , or primary visibly adjusting part of whatever machine they’re piloting) to the point i’m almost ignoring their avatar entirely
snakechurch
I wonder if that wouldn’t be considered a bit rude, like watching The Muppet Show and going “alright, cut the crap and show me the REAL people.” It seems like Bip uses an avatar (which not all AI do) because it lets them emote and express themself in ways their “real” body can’t.
Not that Bip themself would necessarily think it’s rude; maybe it’s interesting when the occasional meat-sophont is more interested in their hardware than their software, especially when it’s strongly instinctual for most of us to look at the person-like thing. I don’t know the character well enough to say. If it were me though, I imagine I’d consider it normal to want to peek behind the scenes now and then, but feel a bit slighted if someone *completely* ignored my carefully choreographed puppetry to stare at my eyeballs the whole time lol
Falconette
Unrelated to the topic at hand, but I love your username.
eden
agreed good name!
snakechurch
thank you 😀
wingedhorror
OH MY GOSH EVERYONE!!! IS IT HAPPENING??? IS TALITA ABOUT DECIDE TO RUNAWAY TO THE STARS?!?! OMG
Jason Myers
I bet Gillie’s good at following conversations while doing stuff- that’s basically what her job is with Bug Ferret interpretation, what with all of their different media styles and all that!
Teod
Nah, she’s on the brink, but she’ll need one more kick to get all the way there. She’ll get it when the next round of temps arrives.
Redacted
Yeah I was wondering if Gillie was following the conversation at all lol. Thank God Bip’s been writing it down. Also hey the BFGC sigil!
zeeg
Talitaaaaaaaa *sobbing and banging on glass* TAILITAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Morbidipea
Talita: I quit. It’s been real, Mel.
Mel: WHY DIDN’T I FIRE HIM
boxesofboxes
Nah, more like “This was unforseeable!”
NightOwl
or “How could you hurt me like this?”
Vinemaple
I do wonder if there will be a big “after all I’ve done for you” speech from Mel when they find out about the Runaway, or just the quit. Horrible, unless it’s like in Ow, My Sanity, where the character being hurt finally calls the one hurting them out.
Enai
Unfortunately, I also believe they won’t have seen Talitas exit coming. Those dismissive “Is that all?”s were mostly for Mel to convince themself that it (the bullying college students, Adam, what-have-you-else) is nothing, really, not important, Talita can take care of herself. Mel is mostly lying to themself, I think, to maintain their self image as a “good person”. Pity. Had they even _tried_ to be an adequate manager (go to HR and ask “Hey, what’s Ixion’s policy on bullying? My valued employee came to me with an accusation against our most disruptive temp…” then implement the answer. You can moan and complain the entire way, but needs must!), they would probably retain her, predictably disastrous centaur temp sitiation notwithstanding. But like this? Bet Talita is the next one to send perfunctory feaster greetings, designed by a stable diffusion model, not even an actual sapient AI…
Ellindsey
I fear that Talita still needs things to get even worse before she’ll be willing to leave with them. She still needs to find out about the clan of centaurs that Mel is presumably importing to work with her, after all.
cypr
TALITA JOIN MY EMO BAND
hold bird like hamburger
“Quit your job”
“why”
“Join my emo band”
Martin
REAL
halley
DO IT TAL U KNOW U WANT TO
EnchantressEmily
Looks like Gillie may have been too caught up in her work to read the last few rounds of conversation transcription…
Ruby
“Did I say something wrong?” moment
Velocira
I love the subtle detail of bips camera following Idrisah’s line of sight in the last two panels
Heather
I just noticed that too! Really good.
petra
grabs talita by the shoulders (i am standing on a step ladder)
hey. hey. hey. maybe it’s time to… run.. away..
to the stars, perhaps
NotOkapi
Literally clapped like a seal at this comment
Flori
But did you bark? Without the barking it’s just clapping. You gotta bark to get the seal experience
Jason Myers
Talitaaaaaa ;A, Growing up on a small island, I can relate- everyone growing up and leaving (though cost of living due to gentrification definitely wasn’t helping). But people leaving the shitthole you have to experience and can see no way away from…
Well. Sometimes, you need a friend to throw down a rope into the hole you’re stuck in. And hey, a spaceship is a pretty good way of getting out of a hole!
Adrienne
At everyone relating to Talita in this moment, we are all holding hands in non-denominational prayer that we may have our own Bips, Gillies, and Idrisahs someday
Lezzlebit
Oh, to have a bombastic triangular poltergeist in my life… sighs wistfully
Jason Myers
Y’all can do it!!! Though we may be strangers, we are all on this pale blue dot together. Good luck!!!!
purrs
idrisaaaaaaaaaaaaah take her with youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Arcstone
It is tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime
to runawaaaaaaaaaaay
✨🪐🚀⭐𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓪𝓻𝓼⭐🚀🪐✨
The Opossum Witch
read this in the same sing song as “history of the entire world i guess”
FuzzySpiderPawz
Been relating to Talita way too hard these last few pages especially right now with the whole “my social circle is so small and I’m worried it’ll soon be nonexistent” bit.
FuzzySpiderPawz
And also with assuming that everybody would rather leave me behind than help lol💔
meow town
poor talita’s feathers are all ruffled 🙁
Lilac
Oouhhh yeahhj I Too have been feeling like im slowly drifting away from all my once safe harbors and do not know how to return to them or find new ones and it has been eating me from the inside out. I Understand.Talita. Yeah
Lilac
And its like Everyone else has somewhere to go instead of you. And its like you want to hold on you want to stay so bad and its like. Well maybe it was my fault somehow, and . Yeah . I Understand Talita
Chrysalis
Admitting the problem exists is an important first step, so technically going from “It’s fine here” to “I’m stuck here” is progress!
Enai
Huh. Now that you mention it, I think you’re right: feeling stuck means that Talita has started thinking about moving on to other things. It’s no longer “Nah, I’m fine here, I’m not leaving” it’s “I’m stuck, I can’t leave”. You’d only say “I’m stuck” if you want to leave. Small yet important difference.
Vinemaple
“I have so few people in my social circle that I can’t afford to burn bridges.” Oof. I do Not like how relatable that line is, to me.
Lezzlebit
Obviously we all know whats bound to happen in this comic but girl……. I feel Talita’s situation soo much. Your few friends getting more distant as you’re just kind of left somewhere without many options for friendship…
What sucks is that even making internet friends is hard in this scenario with the minutes of lag. Though, I think being able to physically be around your friends is way better for anyone’s health. It just really sucks to actually be in this situation without knowing that you can Run Away (to the St
Jay Eaton
Lezzlebit was tragically shot mid-sentence by a sniper rifle
DasGanon
Too close to the truth (and saying the thing)
HAL9000
this is the voice of the mysterons…. we know that you can hear us talita…. get on the ship talita… you know you want to…. go be free….
(fr though love the depiction of the struggle of change)
Trees
I would normally recommend healthy skepticism regarding The Voice of the Mysterons and any helpful, personal advice he might ominously pronounce from thin air by means inscrutable, but I might give it a tentative pass just this time.
The Opossum Witch
the the comment/username combo
Tumorhead
the girlies can do some shipping fraud! its fine!! a little crime
Peter Jensen
Catgirls can have little a shipping fraud, as a treat!
creetur
Don’t worry, it’s enrichment :]
Jay Cea
I know I’m focusing on the wrong thing, but such an organised and simple to use webpage… with clear menus, and sub-menus, for something like a government website! especially from the Bug-ferret galactic community!! They seem to love complicated UI. I wish there was something like this in real life… sorting out anything legal is a real nightmare.
Vinemaple
Oh, I automatically assumed the UI was designed by a human contractor! But, yes, a good one…
Lezzlebit
I don’t wanna discredit the bug ferrets but I wouldn’t be surprised if this webpage was the work of some very nerdy and dedicated humans trying to create a neat human interface for BFGC systems haha
I wonder if lots of interfaces have to be not just language translated but also redesigned completely for ease of use to different sophonts or even cultures within sophonts…
Though, the one hole in my theory here is that Gillie would totally try to use the bug ferret designed version of this website just for the thrill of it (thinking of the “universal terminal is broken” comic…..)
JoB
Human Frontend Dev: “Why, thank you for the applause, but I have to admit that in this project, the real heros are the backend guys who have to provide the middleware between our API and the bug ferrets’ …”
Chrysalis
I’m mainly here for the story and the characters and the worldbuilding, but the ergonomic and UI design in this comic also make me very very very happy.
Entguarde
Oh Talita… honey… baby… she’s so tired
Also I ADORE the BFGC interface, it’s just the right level of busy to know it’s a bug ferret website, but still technically accessible for other sophonts!
HAL9000
its somehow easier to access and more cohesively designed then the majority of modern government websites lmao. i imagine there was a Lot of arguing over design choices though
Chrysalis
Compared to the standard government approach of having everything on a separate page that will be orphaned, deleted, or forgotten in the next biannual website overhaul, just having everything on one page seems like a step up!
edenmachine5457
.omg gillie worst timing ever maybe
.but also. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TALITA!!! YOU CAN LEAVE WITH THEM!!!!!!!! IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vinemaple
I have been WONDERING, ever since I first saw the prev page, whether Gillie was reading along, at all. I have excellent hearing, yet I do this a lot when I’m hyperfocused.
Claire
On the bright side… Talita wasn’t looking at least…
bugs
sure, but she laughed out loud
hurgaburga
…yeah talita, about that.