That's a pretty good point, giant glowing ghost Bip made of marine snow trapped in the wreckage of a small jet airplane harpooned to the ocean floor.
Transcript
Talita stands on the edge of the dollhouse cutaway, looking incredulously at the enormous luminous Bip avatar. It leans over, considering her with a hand on its chin.
Bip: Isn't the water pressure down here deadly?
SFX: ping!
Talita's eyes open. She is lying disoriented in her bed on Dirtball, awakened by a chime from her tablet on the bedside dresser. Spread over the top of her usual comforter is the antler velvet blanket from the Runaway. She blearily tugs on her reading glasses and picks up her tablet to squint at the source of the notification.
68 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 221”
eliimortal
really taking a moment to admire the anatomy of lanky awkward pubescent talita right next to our fully grown fully large talita
The Opossum Witch
Oughgh the scrunkly
Sabella
Talita looking absolutely scronkled under her Centaur velvet blanket is so cute.
Montydragon
oh my god, Talita with the blanket. I love how you capture all these abstract emotions she’s having
hold bird like hamburger
impeccable “just-woke-up” face.
SheTheTDE
That sounds like the kind of sentence that’s either a memory from waking life, something overheard while waking up, or a lot more important than it seems.
Common Handle
It makes me think about the kinds of metaphorical pressure. like the pressure involved in trying to repair a spacecraft well enough that it’s spaceworthy again with no real testing… I’d imagine that’s pretty heavy.
Redacted
The skrinkled beast awakens.
Also big fan of Bip’s last line in the dream, it’s really hard to accurately recreate that kind of weird trippy dream-ness.
Felixscout
Goodbye laptop nailed to the wall.
Kayjack
fascinated with the dome lensed glasses vs the square flat ones.
Septemberdale
Recent rapid improvement in centaur glasses technology, perhaps? After all, the Pahk diplomats she met when she was little had monocles, and Talita then had what were probably modified human glasses that she disliked the feeling of.
NotOkapi
Don’t know if it’s still the canon answer, but a reason that was given was that Talita was just embarrassed by how the domed lenses made her look, so she wears slightly less functional glasses that don’t look quite as silly. https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/657377767179059200/this-seems-super-late-in-the-process-for-a-design
Kayjack
Awww but the dome lenses look so good, and even better if they are more functional.
TawnySoup
Thaaaat explains it ahaha
oooohhh…. she was sleeping under the velvet blanket……
Rex
SHE’S SLEEPING WITH THE QUILT😭
luvbird07
When this comic comes out as a book i think i just might kill someone for it.. So Excited..!
Margrod
I can second that, i would buy the hell out of the whole thing
MyUniverseinaBox
I love this comic more and more with every page
TotallySomebody
Everyone talking about the blanket BUT THE WALL LAPTOP RETURNS!!!
shee
Wall laptop? I see it but I do not understand
furubatsu
I wonder if the Incredibly Culturally Significant Antler Blanket is at all like a weighted blanket?
DasGanon
I mean, probably in the middle? It’s more flexible than normal leather, but leather is way heavier than most fabrics, but doesn’t have the weight (sand, glass, ball bearings, etc)
KataraTakaran
I mean, I have a quilt someone made me out of scrap jeans (denim) and that thing is probably 3/4ths the weight of a weighted blanket at least. A leather one thats talita sized would probbaly have SOME kinda heft to it
Gheesfellow
Don’t know, I would be a little less casual with the priceless cultural artifact.
fennel
Incredibly Culturally Significant to like 12 people. All of whom are dead. It’s like buying a knitted blanket with a family tree on it from an estate sale
blythe
yeah its uh. idk. feels almost disrespectful. and i doubt she knows how to properly care for it too so if i were her id be VERY careful about getting it dirty or damaged…
Krangis
Personally, I think it’s pretty neat that a blanket that was going to be simply buried found a new life giving comfort to an orphaned Centaur. She’s also clearly extremely moved by the history around the blanket and its meaning, I’m sure she either looked up or asked Bip for instructions in regards to caring for it properly.
I suppose it’s all a matter of opinion, but I think it’s cool. And Talita doesn’t seem like the type to not take care of something so precious.
pey wet
maybe this is the only satisfying way to respect its value. sure she could take better care of it by never actually using it, but then shes got an emotionally significant artifact from a dead family of a different culture being dispassionately preserved like a museum piece, which is about as far from its intended purpose as it gets. i can see her rationalizing that shes valuing it much more, maybe using it more appropriately, by keeping it as a source of warmth and comfort. or more likely not being sure what else to do with it besides a utilitarian usage that just feels right.
IncompleteMachine
I think its more like trying to forge a connection. She’s a being stuck between two worlds and never quite going to fit in either. Intelligent beings make symbolic gestures; this is her gesture towards wanting *some* kind of link to the other half of her existence, even if remote.
Thisfox
Fascinating. I’ve just realised I was expecting centaur sleeping to naturally be not exactly standing, more a centaurish loaf shape, head down, so that those pesky upward pointing neck feathers point down whilst asleep. But instead she is in a deliciously relaxed sprawl under blankets.
fishgreen
i suppose even if most centaurs normally sleep a different way, human socialization could impact the way talita specifically sleeps. sidenote she looks so cozy <333
Phasma Felis
I was just thinking that her frustrated sigh from the previous page seemed like it might be an acquired human mannerism.
ΩΩΩΩΩ
fantastic expression with the glasses lol
Lilac
I like how even with one single mysterious line in a dream bip is still slightly sarcastic/snarky/know-it-all gjfjfjgjffs
Lettuce Vervain
oohhhhthe velvet blankert… aaaaauuueueueueuue
JoB
> Isn’t the water pressure down here deadly?
Technically [waves hand at various water critters on the last couple pages], your usual surroundings are deadlier, Bip …
Vinemaple
Also noticing that the D-rings on Talita’s glasses are big enough to slip a hoof-nail through. Nice design! She probably designed it herself…
Heather
Really loving that “bedhead” also translates to centaur feathers.
Claire
Wait… if Talita uses her nictitating membranes to mimic human expression… how would squinting with them work? or can she use her regular eyelids for certain squinty expressions in conjunction with her nictitating membranes?
halley
i was thinking that too! fascinating to me that squinting blearily, something i consider to be largely instinctual, is something she would do with nictitating membranes. the biggest reason is because i’d think that when she is at her lowest-functioning (still halfway asleep) and with no one around she would stop masking and doing human expressions, at least until she’s awake, but also because i imagine nictitating membranes are significantly worse at blocking out light than primary eyelids, which imo is the point of the waking-up squint
cinna
I think the thing is that Talita’s expressions are so habitually ingrained as to be automatic for her; it might be closer to masking if she attempted to smile the way homeplanet centaurs would.
Still interesting that she’s squinting like that with her main eyelids fully open here. Maybe she’s actively holding them open to try and look at the screen, but the membranes are still squinting reflexively.
Although, I suppose squinting isn’t quite as reflexive as, say, closing your eyes when something’s about to whack you in the face, or the dilation + constriction of pupils in response to light. Maybe it’s just a force of habit that she’s not awake enough to realise she’s doing? Like when my phone’s alarm wakes me up and I try to answer it as if it’s a phone call <_<
(Fun fact side note: most humans have a reflex that means if you shine a light directly into one eye, both pupils constrict. That's mainly just a mammal thing! Birds– and most reptiles– can dilate each independently, and even voluntarily control their iris muscles to use their pupils as a means of social communication)
Curona
It makes sense to me that her nictating membranes would be visible even when she’s not “masking”. If you’ve ever seen a cat that’s really relaxed or on the verge of sleep their third eyelids show when normally they do not.
Claire
oh, when I say “work”, i mean the fact that nictitating membranes are translucent. It won’t accomplish the task of squinting, to highlight that this is habitual, not functional.
tyrone
Those eyes are like 1/5 as bleary as mine when waking up early.
Seems the Antler-Idol has induces psychedelic dreams or more likely , there are maybe
pheromones in the skin that affects Talita ? She is Alien after all, everything is possible
Vinemaple
It’s not hard to connect this dream to Talita’s unaltered mental state, but I am intrigued by the way panel 1 may imply that Talita was feeling the velvet with her trunk, as she slept.
Septemberdale
More likely, Talita simply habitually or occasionally has vivid dreams but they’re rarely so relevant to her real life.
Limulid
Something something, individual cut from their family/crew with no hope of reintegrating, arriving in a pet carrier/800 phones and being forced to rely on the good will of others to live at all, something something individual whose senses extend beyond the capabilities of other sophonts leading to awkwardness in enclosed spaces…
I wouldn’t have thought these two to be so similar, but I look forward to their parallel arcs!!
Vinemaple
Like I been saying… Platonic Biplita, so much potential in this ship
bryn
its a good and beautiful budding friendship! i love seeing it grow
Peter Jensen
This Bip’s more planktonic, though …
InsideOutlander
I see it. That’s some incredible parallels. The big difference is their ages and amount of life experience when they arrived at their similar experiences of alienation.
Adrienne
Not Talita sleeping under the antler velvet blanket, just destroy me TT0TT
Vinemaple
It’s also giving “I don’t actually have a place for something like this, or time to make a place for it… but for now, well, it IS a [insanely valuable but also culturally priceless] blanket, so, well, I guess I’ll put it on my bed” vibes, I can relate to that
thegriffin88
I hate being woken up from a cool, trippy dream. No, wait! That was more interesting than this world!
Amber
Excellent expression for “rudely awoken from a weird ass dream that I should probably psychoanalyze but I REALLY don’t want to”
cinna
Talita darling please give your big farsighted eyes a moment to adjust to awakeness before you blast them with light directly in front of your face
kaittzie
Maybe the real bip was stored in the leather quilt along the way
Bebo
Talita’s gonna save loads on her heating bill with her new weighted blanket
Chrysalis
There are so many ways to armchair-psychoanalyze Talita sleeping under the antler blanket, and I’m going to be patient and not do any of them. Yet.
Also, I don’t know if marine snow Bip was done with hand-stippling, but if so, Jay has stronger wrists than I!
Vinemaple
I’m guessing 1. use stippling brush, 2. zoom way in, 3. painstakingly correct and enhance every inch of the stippling by hand, 4. zoom back out and inspect, 5. go to step 3.
Source: watching Jay livestream
Chrysalis
I am even more impressed than before.
Synthaphone
using her new blankie !!!
HAL9000
oh good catch!! sleeping with the antler tapestry… aww
Teod
Also explains the pressure dream – she’s not used to the extra weight.
MutableAlias
she also has her old blanket from at least her teenage years
Enai
Is it even meant to be used for sleeping? I would expect for it to be a wall hanging decoration of some sort, to minimize wear and tear of the priceless object, because it is unique and meaningful to the clan.
JoB
> I would expect for it to be a wall hanging decoration of some
> sort, to minimize wear and tear of the priceless object
It was found stored in a drawer, so, not even that exposed, actually …
Enai
Well, one might store both wall-hangings that only come out for certain occasions and blankets that are used only in certain seasons that way, so that tells us nothing about the usual use of the antler blanket :/ It might just have been freshly cleaned and stored for the off-season.