This phone app is pretty damn good by modern standards but it's choking on the combination of a non-human speaker and more than three overlapping voices.
Transcript
Idrisah: TEMPS… With Calcery gone, our apartment building is crowded for once. Your new crew is NOISY, Talita.Inset panel: Idrisah taking out the trash and looking down the end of the apartment hallway at the 5 temps raucously conversing and drinking.
Talita: Not like me telling them off would do much.
Idrisah: Are they being jerks?
Talita: It’s the usual vibes. Like they’re worried that if I get mad I’ll flip out and maul them, or something.
Idrisah: That’s so stupid!! You’re just a person!
Announcer: TEN! THAT’S A MATCH FOLKS! CONGRATS TO–
Gillie nervously looks down at her transcription app as the two talk. It is struggling with the overlapping conversation.
App transcript:
??1: it’s remarkably hard to condense the dragon—
??2: for besting her opponent and waning—
??3: Thor 3 meters tall with sharp teeth galactic cup—
Idrisah: I wish you could just tell them to go fuck themselves—
??1: threats are absolute bottom of the 100 kilo weight last—
??2: of things that help—
Gillie: Ahem
Gillie: (ASL) Can I… uh… mute the TV?
38 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 53”
Liza
Doing a reread and was happy to find I could identify all the silhouettes in the panel with the temps based on their appearances in chapter 3. That’s solid character design/consistency.
dokki
revisited this page and realized that idrisah is recalling seeing temps outside, for some reason I thought she’d stepped outside in the present and seen them- which didn’t line up with the established environment. i may be stupid
Apollo235
Coming back to this page, I wonder what Idrisah and Talita where saying while the ‘camera’ focused on Gillie’s phone. Did Idrisah really say fuck? I can’t imagine her swearing, at least not big ones
Pathfinder
I had that exact same magnifying+lamp thingy in college for soldering. Some things work too good to be ditched!
zofifi
“congrats stew. It’s remarkably hard to condense a dragon” pffft
evileeyore
I love how Talita looks vaguely smug at the thought that others are afraid of her. While she’d never “throw her weight around’ in such a fashion, that she’s an intimidating figure is clearly vibing with her.
Robin
oh huh! I interpreted her expression completely different- I thought she looked fed up because of how people see her even though she’s not a violent person
evileeyore
Hah, I love that! We can see different things! It’s an interesting perspective, we’ll have to see how things play out over time for confirmation either way.
ImJustaTourist
Talita’s probably the only Centaur they’ve ever met IRL, a Centaur raised by humans, while their frame of reference is probably based solely on whatever they’ve seen in the media, which has got to be Centaurs born and raised on homeworld.
Waitwot
Ah, automatic closed captions. Can only transcribe so much.
Waitwot
Whoops fudged the finger on mobile.
Greenjoe
Even in the future, the floppy disk is still used as a save icon
Ruby
It’s an ancient hieroglyph at this point
Athelind Llewellyn Long
My wetware has the same issue with overlapping voices.
Peter Jensen
I’m deaf in one ear, and it makes it really difficult to focus on an individual conversation in a large group. People underestimate the importance of directional hearing. It’s a lot like losing depth perception if you only have one eye.
Ruby
Lmao poor Gillie
notanocelot
Is the horned temp smoking a cig in the first panel? All those potential fire hazards can’t be good in a space port, even one as big as Shikaviil.
Joysweeper
They might be vaping! which I expect would be okay “outside” the building but especially scented could get obnoxious inside.
Jay Eaton
Xe is smoking weed and no it is not allowed in Shikaviil lol. The smoking part, they don’t care about weed. Spacer cultures tend to have brutally strict fire regulations, because fire can be brutally efficient at causing disasters in enclosed pressurized spaces with a limited oxygen supply.
Greenjoe
Smuggled weed..
What kinda punishment is there for smoking In places like that? A big fine? Firing and being shipped back home?
SIGSTKFLT
that’s not “can i mute the tv”, that’s pointing at the TV and signing ‘M’! 😛
Ruby
It’s normal to skip words in sign language depending on the context, no?
Feather
The author’s posted before about how they illustrate Gillie’s signing by drawing one sign that is a key part of the sentence or just fits the composition of the panel and letting the speech bubble do the rest – I think the pages would be a lot larger (and take longer to make) if we saw every sign Gillie uses!
SIGSTKFLT
oh yeah i know, pointing-and-signing-m would be perfectly reasonable to translate to “can i mute the tv?” but it’s funny to say it isn’t. the signs we see in the panel is arguably “TELEVISION MUTE QUESTION”
Mica
I don’t know about “funny”, but it’s definitely an interesting contrast in grammar styles!
eden
yeah it’s like picking the best facial expression and gesture to communicate the basic meaning and feel of the sentence
B
VICTORY FOR THE DRAGON i think
Napkinkat
I think I’m more likely to maul those assholes than Talita; I would bite them. Poor Talita, she’s so cool if only the temps got to know her!
persimmon
nice to see the floppy icon has survived another few centuries!
TotallySomebody
There’s a error in the transcript! Idrisah says “Are you being jerks?” Instead of “they”.
Jay Eaton
Fixed.
Coolguy
Yeesh. Imagine people thinking you’re going to act like an animal just because you’re a Big Carnivore from a species that is less technologically advanced. That can’t be great for her anxiety. Talita is once again catching strays just for existing😔
Trees
All the leading experts will agree: attempt to condense a dragon at your own risk!
Comito
My sister in space christ, you put it on that channel!
Teleportato
Yeah but she can focus better if it’s muted and probably only left the volume on for the benefit of her hearing friends.
I’m not deaf or HOH but I watch everything with captions and sometimes mute shows to avoid disturbing other people lol
Eden
I’m pretty sure any channel would screw up her live chat app. it doesn’t have the ability to pick and choose which voices to transcribe
aron
the only other suggestion that someone else (Idrisah) made was a depressing documentary. Gillie’s doing the best she can to make this feel like a party
Ruby
Tbf she was more interested in the visual part. I don’t think that Gillie even considered that the TV also “speaks”.