Talita is the only centaur Idrisah's ever met, so she really isn't aware of how skewed an impression she has been given...
Transcript
Idrisah: But leaving for 3 months… right after Cal quitting… is so hard on the rest of admin…
Talita: It’s your right to take leave. The company can figure it out.
Idrisah smirks.
Idrisah: Ha. That’s rich, coming from you. When’s the last time you visited your homeplanet?
Talita freezes, then looks away, rubbing her face with a hand.
Talita: Oh. I’ve never been.
Idrisah's eyes widen.
Idrisah: NEVER??
Talita feathers raise in embarrassed agitation and she rolls her eyes, waving a hand dismissively.
Talita: I don’t… mesh well with other centaurs.
Idrisah: How so?
Talita: Are you familiar with the clan system?
26 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 157”
TotallySomebody
Talita would you even *like* to go??
Phlosioneer
Talita is definitely a 3-years-of-accumulated-vacation-time kind of person. A comfy job-routine, home hobbies that are hard to travel with, and no other friends/family outside of work. A perfect recipe.
Also I bet Idra is in for a big shock at how *disconnected* talita is. Idra has a huge family and regular contact. Talita has functionally no family except maybe Mel, if they count, and that relationship is strained.
furubatsu
Only other “Family member” Talita probably has is Douglas Esteves (World -> Characters -> Douglas for who that is) he was basically Talita’s primary carerer when she was in the Foster Home
Vinemaple
Oh, my word. They really DON’T know each other that well. This is why she dissembled when Cal suggested Gillie and Idrisah were friends.
It’s going to be hard to get my head around the idea that I know more about Talita than the Touati-Sharpes do!
Teod
And here comes another reason why Mel’s plan is terrible. Our dwellings reflect our culture and social structure. Talita’s house plan is probably just a human house, but centaur-sized. It is not a centaur house. If Mel just used her schematics without a cultural consultation about what actual centaur housing looks like, then the arriving centaurs will not be happy about the layout.
What if they need communal bedrooms and/or bathrooms, instead of individualized ones? What if they find living rooms to be a more private spaces and get offended by the entry doors opening directly into them? Do they merge their kitchens to dining rooms and toilets to bathrooms, or keep them separate? What if they have an entire room purpose that’s not present in our culture (meditation/prayer room, dedicated entertainment room, dressing room, etc)? And all that is just the contents of the apartments – what if they have a fundamental issue with the concept of an apartment as a whole?
Adrienne
Actually, I’m suddenly worried about the opposite: that Mel is making the apartment *very culturally accurate* for home planet centaurs – which of course has nothing to do with what makes Talita personally comfortable. Either way, I think we can expect a suuuper awkward moment on the horizon…
eden
but if mel had such an understanding of centuar architecture, wouldn’t they also have to know enough about clan structure to know why talita would hate it?
Phlosioneer
They’re going off of plans talita drew, not shooting into the dark. Buuuuut….. there’s still a big gap between idle drawings and actually constructed buildings.
Enai
Can you point me to where Talita designed Centaur housing? Or any housing? I must’ve missed that comic.
furubatsu
Chapter 1 Page 14 they ask Talita for “Those old schematics you drafted for your apartment?” before brushing off her question of why with “You’ll find out”!
(And Chapter 2, Page 41 and 42 are where we see Mel talk to Ohwitiil about “The next round of temps” and all the rebuilding of infrastructure that they’ll need if they get the go ahead)
Teod
What I’m saying is that the plans Talita made are probably just human houses scaled up. It’s the only kind of house she lived in and the culture she grew up with.
Paroxysmall
Shoutout to Idrisah’s strand + lock of hair that are both too short to fit into the clip
Vinemaple
And Talita’s non-diegetic sweatles.
Chrysalis
So Idrisah, you were saying how you feel weird around your genetic relatives for being brought up differently…?
Chrysalis
Totally unrelated, I love how the faces in this comic switch between exquisitely rendered realism and cartoon reaction shots (such as panels 3-4) and it always feels totally seamless. That’s good character design!
creetur
Time for Idrisah to find out how detached Talita is from other centaurs. Will be quite the realization.
Tentament
How much of Talita’s background does Idrisah know? Does she know she’s an orphan?
Jay Eaton
She’s aware Talita was raised in human foster care, and thus probably did not have any centaur family willing or able to claim her.
Vinemaple
It occurs to me that it’s slightly weird that both of them refer to the Centaur homeworld as Talita’s “homeplanet,” when she’s a presumed Starchaser orphan who was raised in Nexus Jovia. Come to think of it, wasn’t Idrisah born in Nexus Jovia?
Idrisah, as a linguist, could probably explain the futuristic nuances and meaning shifts I’m presumably missing…
gigithebear
bug ferrets 🤝 centaurs
if you dont exist within a unit then you are no better than a stranger to who we are as ppl
creetur
Probably a little less extreme with the centaurs, but yeah..
Aidan
I also feel weird when I try to talk with the more spanish speaking side of my family (I’m bad at spanish)
S0glet
Centaur lesson time!!!! Hell yeah!!
kiwitruck
TALITA’S FACE ON THE THIRD PANEL IS SO GOOFY HEHEHEHE
Vinemaple
You know, this makes me think about Centuar eyes. I’m gonna have to comb through Jay’s website, and see if he’s done any high-resolution, photorealistic images of Centaur faces, I don’t really have a good idea of what those googly eyes are representing…
Feather
There’s a bonus comic somewhere about cutting onions that goes into how Centaur eyes work slightly, which might help. And I also remember Jay posting a reference of Talita expressions vs normal Centaur expressions that talked a bit about it as well.