Runaway to the stars
| Original review author: | Twocookedpears |
| Webcomic name: | Runaway to the stars |
| Author: | Jay Eaton |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2023 |
| End Date: | Ongoing |
| Genre: | Slice of life hard sci-fi |
| Defining Flaw: | Boring lore dumps that turn into horrible lore dumps. Also, the lore has AIDS. |
Rating Summary
Background
I like worldbuilding. I like speculative biology. I used to like RttS. Even then, I took one look at the webcomic and thought it was boring. Also, the worldbuilding is stuffed to the brim with the author’s personal ideas for what a “utopia” would look like.
Downfall
It starts boring, and turns horrible around Chapter 6, page 163. Token deaf girl forcibly grabs Protag when Protag is stressed and wants to go outside instead of learning sign language. I hope I don't have to say this, but this is a horrible idea. If you are ever in deaf girl's position, DO NOT DO THIS.
Story and Plot
Keep in mind that all the chapters at the end have “character AMAs” (ask me anything) that only serve to destroy what narrative flow this webcomic had. Chapter 1 is an introduction to all the characters, including protag centaur thing, token deaf girl, token Muslim, bearded lady, EVIL WHITE MAN, and everyone else that I can’t bother to remember. Protag discovers a shitload of phones in a wrecked spaceship and decides to charge them so she can sell them for money. In Chapter 2, we are given an incredibly boring lore dump, also an AI is living in the phone. Chapter 3 Protag explores the spaceship, and that’s pretty much it. Chapter 4 the Muslim discovers that the AI is here and freaks out because of paperwork. Deaf girl supports the AI because she can, and that’s all her motivation. Chapter 5, apparently bearded lady is bulldozing apartments for protag, and deaf girl is angry because she’s deaf. Also, more lore… Chapter 6 has protag not want to learn sign language because she doesn’t have hands, deaf girl grabs Protag and forces her to learn. Also protag is sad she’s not a human, and Muslim immediately says she has a mental illness because of that. In Chapter 7, protag during her forced sign language lessons is now shedding her tusks, Muslim cries because of her family, the ship was piloted by protag’s species, and protag discovers a blanket. Chapter 8 protag has a dream, STRAIGHT WHITE MAN is being an idiot at work, STRAIGHT WHITE MAN pulls on protag’s tusks, and that’s seen as a bad thing, even though 2 chapters ago deaf girl physically forced protag to stay with her. Protag seeks the help of bearded lady, bearded lady offers a solution, Protag says it won’t work because reasons, Protag cries like a little bitch even though she’s supposed to be STRAIGHT WHITE MAN’s superior and therefore would have the power to do as she sees fit, Muslim states the obvious with the AI, and they all have a big hug.
EDIT: Okay, there's more pages now. The characters are finally going to space. THIS TOOK 200 PAGES. THIS SHOULD'VE BEEN THE FIRST PART. But before that, Protag gets new employees, and they're her race. Too bad Protag is scared of her own race. There's actually a short comic that establishes her fear of her own kind, and it's actually quite good. (Oh, and I should mention that there are multiple short comics, ranging from good to even shittier than the main comic.) Too bad in it, she's 5. Yeah, apparently after 25 years her reactions haven't changed. You'd expect a 30 year old to have at least once in her lifetime tried to know more about her own race. However new to FTL travel they are, i think there should be say, videos about them or some such. But no, we need more trite drama.
Art review


It’s quite nice, and really professionally done. The only gripe I have with it is that the comic is monochrome, and that makes aliens of the same species hard to differentiate. In the later pages the art gets even better, but the human faces still remain cartoony despite being realistically shaded, and that makes the human characters kind of uncanny.

Writing review
Chapters 1-5 are so different from chapters 6+ that I will separate the complaints.
The beginning is unbearably slow. The plot takes several pages to describe stuff that could’ve taken only one. For example, the protagonist screams when she discovers the AI in the phones she scavenged. Deaf girl and Muslim take a very wordy page to discuss whether they should go and help their friend. In another example, the protagonist takes 3 pages straight to run on a treadmill. This is supposed to be a metaphor for something, but 3 PAGES??? Come on! Also, the characters have no motivation for the main plot. They just want to go to space because “Doesn't it seem like fun?!?” (no, it doesn't) And it's not helped that at the end of every chapter, the plot gets sidelined for “character AMAs” that have the miraculous property to dissolve any narrative flow this story has.
But chapter 6 and on make me wish the glacial pacing was the only problem with the webcomic. The protagonist is a huge pansy. She can’t even discipline her own employees, for god’s sake! And when her own boss comes up with a solution, she rejects it without coming up with another, and then goes cry to her friends. Friends that did the same shit as her employee, but apparently, it's not a problem when they do it. By the way, the protagonist is supposed to be 30, but acts like she’s half that. And speaking of her “friends”, deaf girl’s only personality trait is that she’s deaf. Her deafness is a narrative black hole. When her deafness comes up, which is all the time, it swallows up everything else in the story. She’s a goddamn mary sue. When her deafness comes up, every character bends over backwards for it, and characters that don't are EEVVVIIIILLLL. And speaking of EVVVIIIILLL characters, STRAIGHT WHITE MAN is the protagonist’s EEEEVVVVIIILLLL employee. His only character traits are that he's stupid and a jackass. He is also the only STRAIGHT WHITE MAN in the story (except for a janitor, lmao). For all the wokist talk about good representation and how important it is to represent multiple groups, they sure don't care when it's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN that are badly represented.
I also see a big problem with the "antagonists" of the comic. They just seem like normal people. Protag's boss doesn't really do anything except for being a normal corporate boss, and there's this Bird-alien coworker who in the new pages tries to help Protag and Muslim, but after it's clear he can't help them he goes off to do other things. Apparently that makes him and the boss horrible people. What???
The VERY IMPORTANT LORE
I like the worldbuilding for the most part, and they’re the thing that got me into RttS in the first place. Too bad none of it is important to the plot of the actual webcomic. I have no idea why Jay Eaton made the entire first book, apparently, revolve around 1 tiny planet, when he made a whole star system, multiple alien species, and several fictional countries to be explored. Just wasted potential all around.


Also, the ramifications of much of RttS’s wordbuilding really, really aren’t thought through. Jay treats Gillie, the deaf catgirl, too much like a normal deaf person and not someone accidentally genetically engineered to be disabled. Seriously, I never had to bring up the fact that she’s a catgirl because it was never important to the review. Why do a sci-fi webcomic in the first place? It's clear Jay only wanted to pat himself on the back for disabled “representation”. Oh, and apparently Gillie now suffers because the lab accidentally made her deaf, but turns out she is actually male, was transitioned at 5, and that's portrayed as good. Are you fucking serious?
"Oh, look, tampering of children is bad (that we never really show and only sideline it to random loredumps while treating deaf girl as a flawless token, because why explore the ramifications like an actually good sci-fi would) but giving kids drugs used for sex offenders when they're in their tweens is ok because DON'T QUESTION IT BIGOT).” This shit is bleaker and more dystopian than even Tina's_Story, and that had furries who'd been slaves recently in it!
And speaking of genetic engineering, two species of humans were genetically created, the “tailers” and the people of the magpie bridge project. The tailers were created by a corporation for zero gravity work, so they have problems in normal gravity, and their creation is portrayed as a unanimously bad thing. The people of Magpie Bridge were created by the Chinese government to inhabit the upper layers of a city to be more “eco-friendly”. Their entire section of the lore page is just gushing about how well they are made and how much the Chinese government (mind you, the same government that in real life now has an “ethnic unity” program, guess what happens in it) cares for them. Oh, right, China is communist and is full of “POC” so everything they do is fine.
Author biography
Jay Eaton (according to his own description) is a 29-year-old “they/them” and a digital artist. He has a background in ecology and evolutionary biology (should’ve had a background in writing, but I digress).
Conclusion
This webcomic might have good art and interesting (well, some of it) lore and ideas, but at the end of the day, a webcomic needs a good story. This webcomic doesn’t just not deliver, it tumbles off a cliff, hits multiple rocks down the way, and lands into alligator-infested waters.
Links
https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/home
Where you can start reading, if you hate yourself. Also, you can see the ridiculous amount of extra stuff.
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/ Jay Eaton’s Tumblr.