Runaway to the Stars: Page 58
Posted on August 10, 2024 by Jay Eaton

This is like the fourth time I've drawn this scene. It's evolved quite a bit, I think.

Transcript Talita's tablet, which sitting on her bedroom desk plugged in to charge on its stand, has something on the screen. It's a white iconified avatar of a bug ferret with human or centaur-like cartoon eyes against a black background. Talita stares in blank surprise, pitcher raised to her lips. The avatar lifts its two-fingered vector hand in greeting.
Thing on the screen: Hello, Talita!
Gillie and Idrisah are walking home, holding hands. Gillie is on her phone.
SFX: SHRIEK!
A loud scream erupts from the still open door of Talita's apartment, startling Idrisah but unnoticed by Gillie.

Runaway to the Stars: Page 58
Posted on August 10, 2024 by Jay Eaton

This is like the fourth time I've drawn this scene. It's evolved quite a bit, I think.

Transcript Talita's tablet, which sitting on her bedroom desk plugged in to charge on its stand, has something on the screen. It's a white iconified avatar of a bug ferret with human or centaur-like cartoon eyes against a black background. Talita stares in blank surprise, pitcher raised to her lips. The avatar lifts its two-fingered vector hand in greeting.
Thing on the screen: Hello, Talita!
Gillie and Idrisah are walking home, holding hands. Gillie is on her phone.
SFX: SHRIEK!
A loud scream erupts from the still open door of Talita's apartment, startling Idrisah but unnoticed by Gillie.

88 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 58”

  1. Zany Selkra

    BIP JUMPSCARE

  2. ImJustaTourist

    Remember the ship with a big hole in it? Maybe deliberately holed? Holed to prevent something from reaching civilization?
    This is a Kane-looking-in-the-wet-egg moment.

  3. SIGSTKFLT

    HANDHOLDING?! SCANDALOUS!

  4. evileeyore

    BING BONG BIP already?

  5. Sunstorm

    Bip is strangely menacing here

  6. Paroxysmall

    I went back to look at all of the iterations of this scene and only then realized that Talita is holding some kind of water bottle in all of them, like it’s not quite a spit-take but it shows her being interrupted lol

    1. Apollo235

      Where are the other versions? Jay’s patreon?

      1. Paroxysmall

        Yes, but I just waded through the rtts tag on their tumblr

        1. Apollo235

          Did you keep the links? I’d dig myself but I want to avoid near-term spoilers

  7. tickfleato

    THE FREAK HAS ARRIVED

  8. arf

    Talita demonstrates the off-world shriek technique since, in space, nobody can hear you scream.

    1. evileeyore

      I wonder if Jay used the Wilhelm Scream?

      1. Peter Jensen

        You know, that’s close to what I’m imagining. It’s relatively high pitched and not far off from an elephant trumpet.

      2. Redacted

        Screw you now that’s all I can hear

        1. evileeyore

          BWAHAHAHAHA! Excellent! Goal achieved!

  9. Famout

    Massive creatures scared of tiny things will never not be silly.

  10. Rad Internet Stranger

    BIP TIIIIMMME

  11. Arcstone

    Oh man, idrisah and gillie about to burst back inside like a pair of superheroes?

    1. SIGSTKFLT

      Gillie just being dragged along because Idrisah too busy dragging her along to sign anything

  12. egg

    BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP BIP!!!

    1. Zanorak

      Bip Nye Science AI

  13. bug ferret irl

    BIP TIME IS BEST TIME

  14. hal9000

    fully imaging Talita’s shriek to sound like a child messing with a recorder

    1. Apollo235

      OH MY GOD YES!!

    2. Quazar

      this comment sent me thank you so much

  15. Peter Jensen

    Iiiiiiiiits … Showtime!

  16. 40

    Is Bip pronounced /bɪp/ or /bip/? Either way I’m very happy.

    1. Jay Eaton

      I’m bad with IPA but it’s the same vowel as “blip”

  17. Random Clod

    Bip!!!

  18. Napkinkat

    I just noticed Gillie does not look up in shock lol, I wonder how livetalk would register Talita’s shriek.

    1. SeveredNed

      The app was trying to react to only the talking from the wrestling match, when those can often involve lots of other noises too. Discluding things that aren’t obviously talking would be a good setting when around the amount of machinery and such that they have here.
      But alas it is most likely Gillie wasn’t even looking at it, she knows to trust Idrisah will use sign language if trying to talk to her.

    2. Guest

      Well, she does have profound deafness. Gillie’s probably watching videos or smth by now.

  19. SheTheTDE

    What does a centaur shriek sound

    1. SaveTheItalian

      I really want to know now

    2. Yay

      i’m imagining like a 5 yr old screaming

  20. Strawberry

    Time for BIP.
    Love it when it’s time for BIP

  21. Ruby

    Oh no 🤣
    That’s one heck of a first impression!

  22. B

    When ur computer has a weird bug

    1. Ruby

      You could say that it needs… debugging 😉

  23. feesh

    Small Background Bip with the little dot eyes is actually so important to me. i have a whole folder of screenshots of them saved on my desktop

  24. feesh

    UNAUTHORIZED FUCKING THING

    1. notanocelot

      BLOW IT UP NOW

  25. Mr. Skeleton

    I imagine with lungs like hers Talita can really shriek.

    1. Liza

      Well her vocal lungs are in her head, so not as large as you’d think. Though as Jay once pointed out, we all know babies with their tiny lungs have no problem making themselves heard

      1. Athelind Llewellyn Long

        For my part, I was wondering how she could make such a loud noise with her relatively small vocal apparatus, but “Babies Have Tiny Lungs” answers that.

  26. Coldest Lew

    Bedroom’s haunted.

    1. Ruby

      “What?”
      “*cocks broom* Bedroom’s haunted”

      1. Coldest Lew

        H…How did you do that?

  27. notanocelot

    Unauthorized fucking thing detected

  28. boxesofboxes

    <:<=/=/==/
    ^ bip!

  29. Zarky

    Bip! Yay!
    I always heard Bip’s voice as Gilliam II’s from the english dub of Outlaw Star. i didnt get any choice in the matter, thats just the first voice that came to mind and i love it.

  30. Teod

    Is there a reason you wrote “shriek” instead of the actual sound she made? My imagination is kinda struggling to come up with a solid answer. Maybe just EEEEEEEEK? No, that’s too much disgust and not enough fear, there should probably be some As in there…

    1. ilvos01

      When I think of a “shriek” I think of a sound that, frankly, cannot be easily captured with an onomatopoeia.

    2. aron

      I feel like it would sound like a high-pitched elephant trumpet. just air forced out through the trunk in one big go

  31. WayanayaW

    Yaaaaay Bip’s awake 😀

  32. Liza

    At first I was like “why isn’t Gillie reacting” before I realized I’d forgotten she was Deaf. *facepalm*

    1. Mr. Skeleton

      I wonder if her voice to text app will just translate it as “aiieeeee!”

      1. Liza

        “???: *inhuman shriek*”

  33. Hunter

    I get the feeling this came from the quantum phones XD

  34. can o’ tuna

    I love the details of the body language on Talita, going from a chill happy expression with the trunk rolled up casual style, to the trunk squashing against her face with the shock. I love non human expression stuff (it comes as natural to me as human expressions (not) (autism)), and i adore specbio stuff, so this comic is such a treat for me.

  35. TotallySomebody

    Hi bip!!!

  36. Gar G

    I just knew she was gonna walk in to see him! XDDD (them?)

    I love the look on her face, and how Gillie doesn’t notice

  37. QueerGeologist

    BIP!!!!!

  38. Tyrone the Miner

    “MouuuuusiiiiEEEEEEEEH!!!!”
    Can Talita jump upon a Chair? For comical effect….

    1. Jay Eaton

      Something something “elephants are scared of mice”…

  39. Zuorai

    LETS FFFFFFFFFFUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

  40. Trees

    Piss off, triangle!

    1. Ruby

      THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM REALITY IS AN ILLUSION BUY GOLD BIIIIIIIE

  41. westeast

    BIP!!!!!!!! ♡♡
    I had a feeling the Bip reveal was going to happen when I first saw the previous page

  42. Hi

    The babygirl (genderless) graces the screen!!

  43. Corvus

    BIP TIME!!!

  44. foca

    oooooh i remember past iterations of this scene from a while ago…. when talita had her huge forehead…. so nice to see how much their designs and ur artstyle evolved!!

  45. Greenjoe

    I wonder how Bip was able to display themselves on Talita’s tablet? Are sentient AIs powerful enough to get past whatever protections it has to display themselves on what they want?

    1. foca

      (vaguely spoiler-ish, read at your own risk) AIs in RTTS are basically just people made out of code rather than flesh, so i think they are definitely powerful enough for that. anything a really skilled hacker could do, a skilled AI would be able to, and likely with more ease. easier to understand how to get past cybernetic stuff when you are yourself a cybernetic thing.

    2. Zuorai

      They hitched a ride on the wifi lol

    3. Hyratel

      there’s probably an App loaded on her tablet, designed around this because she was working closely with Calcery, and it would be a fairly broad-spectrum “AI’s Face” app, which Calcery would just use a subset of the features, them not caring for an Emotive Face Avatar, instead just using their Glyph. And she hasn’t had a chance to turn it off because it’s been what. A Day since Calcery shipped offworld? So Bip probably didn’t even have to do any L337 h4x (Leet Hax) to get in, just Ask Nicely. And Personal Infosec seems like it’s 2nd or 3rd string in this environment just due to lack of high-powered hostile actors as a threat scope.

  46. Nerdbird

    YAY it’s finally Bip time!

  47. Amanda/OwlBear

    Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!
    a Bip is on page!!!

  48. J

    Same Talita, same

  49. BobisOnlyBob

    BIP!!!

  50. Napkinkat

    I wonder how a centaur shriek would sound compared to a human one because their vocals are only in their skulls. I also wonder what centaur music would sound like because they can’t really do the ‘singing from your chest’ that humans can. Centaurs are super cool! I am also so exited for Bip, I too would shriek if I thought I was alone and there was suddenly just a little guy there. Bip makes me want to stim :]

    1. Oodles

      I was also wondering this, since the sound tube is so narrow. Is it like a bugle?

    2. Septemberdale

      Probably their traditional music would be split into two main categories: storytelling with background instrumentals and stuff for sound effects and pacing (think epic poems. Would be an important way to pass on historical knowledge (and pass long wake-periods (not sure if habitually more nocturnal or diurnal on the homeplanet) in the season there’s less chores) for a clan-based societies of creatures with poor non-motion vision, was even an important way for many human societies to pass on knowledge before developing the simplest ways to systematically-produce writing) and percussion-heavy music with rhythms similar to the hoofbeats of hunters and the hoofbeats of animals, a story in-and-of-itself for those who understand what the sounds are supposed to be (just seems like a traditional form of entertainment hoofed carnivores would come up with). There’s probably also something more like human popular music or at least religious music in major cities, but whether or not it developed from either of the two types I have speculated exist or is its own separate thing I cannot hope to know any more than I can know whether I was accurate about homeworld centaur musical traditions.

  51. Apollo235

    THEY’RE HERE!! I CAN FINALLY READ THE LORE!!
    Ive been trying (with mixed success) to limit the amount of near-term spoilers I’m reading about so now I can read the AI and Bip lore

    1. Apollo235

      Nope, paragraph two looks like more near term spoilers, i shall continue to wait patiently

      1. Claire

        Bip lore: Bip

        1. DasGanon

          Consider this:

          Bip.

  52. Claire

    THE BIP REVEAL!!!

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