For the curious, the language file was already in Dirtball's local data (thanks to Calcery) and Bip copied it onto the phones.
Transcript
Idrisah: Who is this??Talita: There was an AI… in these phones from the junkyard…
Bip: You must be Idrisah! I’m Bip, pleasure to meet you!
Idrisah: (worried) How do you know my name?
Gillie: (ASL) What’s going on?
Bip promptly switches to a captioned mode, with their dialog appearing as a speech bubbles on the tablet screen.
Bip: Oh, what is that? American sign language? So that’s why I couldn’t hear half of your conversation!
Talita: You were eavesdropping.
Bip: Give me a sec, I’ll download that.
The lights flicker. Idrisah looks extremely stressed. Talita's mane feathers raise in anger.
Talita: STOP ABUSING MY BANDWIDTH!
Bip: There we go! Stay in front camera range. You’re Gillie, right?
56 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 63”
beau
question: why do the lights flicker? data doesn’t require more power the more data is being transmit- it’s digital after all. just thought I would ask since there probably is a reason, I just don’t know what it is 🙂
plum grumble
sometimes things only exist for visual embellishment and not for a real purpose. jay eaton’s specialties are xenobiology and interspecies communication, not tech realism lol
SIGSTKFLT
Bip, I’m disappointed that you didn’t use an A11y font like Atkinson 😛
(I just like Atkinson. I am extremely biased.)
Septemberdale
Love the sassy look on Talita’s face on the “you were eavesdropping” panel. (Or rather it reads as sassy to me, it’s probably just how her mouth looks.)
everentropy
Poor Talita, she’s going to have many headaches in the future with this little guy
Robin
Huge fan of low-detail Talita
Solidago
scary talita is my favorite
Ana
Aaaand now I’m caught up some! Okay, time to bookmark this on my webcomics list. Top-notch, and I’m hooked!
SailorMouth
YOU WOULDN’T DOWNLOAD A LANGUAGE.
PIRACY. ITS A CRIME.
Ruby
Bip, you might want to transfer yourself to more powerful hardware before you fry Talita’s home 😅
hessian
honestly bip seems to be handling things pretty well, despite dealing with a traumatic injury and the AI equivalent to a major concussion. you go lil bug use that bandwith
samkee00
Also… Thinking about how Bip accommodating Gillie is “abusing [Talita’s] bandwidth”. Girl I know you don’t mean it like that but… oof
samkee00
I never even watched much Gravity Falls but for some reason Bip’s voice in my head is very clearly the same as Bill Cipher’s
silverspoon
How considerate of Bip to download a sign language to talk to Gillie
Greenjoe
that, and starting to use captions as soon as they realized Gillie is deaf.
dokki
diversity win! The pirate AI accommodates deaf people!
SIGSTKFLT
The fact that the network equipment + phone charger pad are capable of pulling enough power to flicker the lights is impressive.
cassette
talita is so pretty y’all
Bravo
Yep. Large really aggravated carnivore.
Would be looking to either deescalate or find a locking door.
Apollo235
Bro thats racist
zofifi
Specieist.
scout
come ON man
talita was JUST complaining about this kind of prejudice
Ruby
With these kind of sensitivities this comic might not be for you, mate
AmbroseTV
coward? i’m a gay man but i’d be getting a bouquet of flowers and setting candles up for a romantic meat dinner
Claire
’(΄.-.„Î) Good News, Talita!
`\^ ^/´ Now there’s ASCII art of you too!
”””\/
,/∠¨||¨⦣\
¦[⦿T⦿] |
`\#¥#//
”’`\`Ï´//
8\_W|/ …wait, what?
`\._,./
’(΄.-.„Î)
`\> >/´ I didn’t say good ASCII.
”””\/
Liza
I dunno, I find ascii talita pretty impressive
Trees
Genuinely impressive.
Congrats on managing to coerce the comment section’s arcane kerning gremlins into behaving themselves for once.
Gar G
Omg that looks absolutely amazing
evileeyore
Excellente!
Dizzy
This is genuinely super impressive holy shit
foca
your ascii talita is perfect.
Arcstone
Neo: I know kung fu.
Talita:PAY FOR YOUR OWN DAMN WIFI!
1d4Nadg
Casually downloading a whole language is the dream. Yes, just a second, I’ll be able to understand you, just let me learn ASL… there we go, what were you saying?
Also Gillie looks so happy that someone is willing to learn, that’s so cute
Cass
Never mess with a girl’s bandwidth.
Heather
Yeah tbh I’m admiring Talita’s restraint here
Zidane
wretched little computer program steals all your wifi bandwidth and jacks up your electric bill by over 5 times (i love bip sm)
Spinland
I love how Gillie is all, “Whoa, cool!”
Dicemonger
Meanwhile Idrisah is all worried. Which I guess is perfectly in character.
Greenjoe
Dirtball’s engineers wondering about the sudden power spike from Talita’s apartment in the night.
hal9000
the amount of power Bip just used is gonna have whatever equivalent of space cops dirtball has very interested in talitas secret grow op lmao. also i LOVE seeing talita doing natural, inhuman expressions. go girl! snarl at that little bug bastard!
Apollo235
oh man I just registered the face Gillie is making in the last panel, Talita and Idrisah, furious and panicking , and Gillie is just “woah look at this shitster”
I foresee many shenanigans
Zuorai
ferret-made horrors beyond comprehension!!!???
AnormalADN
Ooh I can just SEE this moment in animated form/movement, that’s hilarious
Tero
that’s so… malicious! talita is one AI-powered antic away from unplugging that phone pile
BobisOnlyBob
…did Bip just make a diegetic speech bubble specifically for Gillie? That’s adorable.
egg
I’ll be honest, I was so worried there was gonna be a whole arc where Talita tries to hide bip from idrisah and gillie. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case.
Also talitas faces in this are so fun and good!!! I love her snorl in the last panel <3
DasGanon
Wait, Talita is on a metered connection?
I’m with Cal, she needs to get out of there.
Peter Jensen
I mean, I could see the reasoning in having *some* limitation on off-planet bandwidth usage, but per the author comment this was local and would be insanely petty to restrict / charge for. Of course Talita might not know that this was a local download and was envisioning an upcoming bill for interstellar download of a complete language library. Pretty sure that would not come particularly cheap.
Trees
I’m lucky enough to live in a nation (UK) where internet providers mostly scrapped data caps for private internet users.
If you’ll pardon my curiosity: is that common or is it still an issue for other commenters here?
DasGanon
I mean me personally, no. I’m lucky and recently got brand new gigabit matched fiber installed in my neighborhood without an install fee.
But I experienced it once when my Uncle was living in Belgium and I don’t ever want to go back
Peter Jensen
I’m personally familiar with the situation in Denmark and Bulgaria. As far as I know, no DK ISP has metered connections any more, for some-kind-of-wired connections. Mobile network based ones (for both home and portable devices) do usually have a monthly limit before throttling, but it tends to be high enough to not be hit even with significant streaming. The only time I give usage a little thought is when doing EU roaming, as that does (for now) have a limit you could potentially hit with regular usage levels.
For BG, in larger cities you’d usually have unmetered wired connections. In rural locations (where I spend most my time when I’m there) only mobile based is available, but the typical decently affordable plans have high data limits, and are sometimes also bundled with an Internet-based TV package (so intended for high bandwidth usage).
Apollo235
Oh man Talita is pissed lol, guess she likes her bandwidth
Apollo235
I wonder how much power Bip just used to make the lights flicker
Trees
That and all the power for simultaneously charging hundreds of phones running a sapient AI. Whoever’s responsible for the dome’s grid is going to think Talita’s trying to run a grow-op or something.
Sevoturedi
Talita already has a (centaur-planet insect) grow op everyone knows about, probably in one of the adjacent hangars!
Of course, bugs instead of plants make «what went wrong» a more pressing issue rather than less. Not that phone bugs are completely safe in such a life-support-heavy place…
evileeyore
To be fair to Bip… Talita already has a lot of high power draw equipment… if she turned it all on at once it would probably do the same thing.