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Chapter: Chapter 6: Binary Counting

  • Two week hiatus! I am moving! Comic returns August 2nd, 2025! Image: An anthropomorphic darwinopterus and blue tongued skink balance boxes on their heads and walk from an apartment building to a house. The darwinopterus is labeled "me" and the skink is labelled "my beloved roommate Hye."

    2 Week Hiatus!

    Jul 19, 2025

  • LOG 6: ASL Alphabet ASL, or American Sign Language, is a member of the French Sign Language tree that originated in the late United States of America. Although it uses some English loanwords, ASL has a different lexicon and grammar than English, and many anglophone regions like Great Britain and the Socialist Republic of Mars have endemic sign languages that have no mutual intelligibility with ASL. Gillie is fluent in a Jovian ASL dialect which has influence from both bug ferret culture and Língua Gestual Cetásereio, a sign language used for underwater communication by Cetasers, an amphibious clade of GMH. LGC is closely related to Libras, a Brazilian sign language. Insert panel: Two Cetasers sign to one another underwater. They are humans with short webbed limbs, cetacean-like tails, white and grey skin, and gills on their neck. A table is shown of the ASL alphabet, with Talita's hand position compared to Gillie's. A B C Talita: Uh… Talita creates the C shape with one thumb up, then moves it next to the other thumb to create a symmetrical C shape. Talita: …Both thumbs?? Gillie smiles and gives her a thumbs up. D E F Talita switches between a version where she holds two digits up and pinches her other finger and thumb together to form a circle, and one where she touches her thumb to her palm and holds the other 3 digits up. Talita: Circle or three fingers? Gillie: (ASL) Circle. G H I Talita: Very similar to "A." Gillie: (ASL) Sign "A" open for clarity? J K L M Talita's face bristles and she frowns as she looks at her hand attempting the M and N handshapes. A human thumb poking through the curled pinkie and ring finger of the "M" handshape and between the ring and middle finger of the "N" handshape are not something her symmetrical four fingered hand can clearly replicate. Talita: …These two, are, uh… Gillie: (ASL) Good enough. N O P Q R S T U V W Talita smiles, making a handshape with 3 digits extended and one thumb curled against her palm. Talita: Ah, 3 fingers is more important here than in "F." Gillie nods. X Y Z "ILY" "I love you" Both of them giggle as they sign their versions of the combined I, L, and Y handsign; Gillie with her index, pinkie, and thumb extended, Talita with both thumbs and one finger extended.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 187 and 188

    Jul 17, 2025

  • Talita stares off into the distance, calculating Gillie's math question, then looks back to her. Talita: (ASL) About... (binary sign) Nine?? Gillie, still grinning, keeps the eye contact. Gillie: (ASL) It’s nice to look at your face when you’re talking to me, nerd. Talita blinks in surprise and then breaks into a shy smile, trunk curling upwards and cheeks fluffing slightly. Talita: (ASL) …Thanks. Idrisah: (ASL) Wanna try fingerspelling next? Talita: Sure… I’ve got time.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 186

    Jul 15, 2025

  • Idrisah: Is that binary counting?? Avians do something similar… Talita: Yeah… Though I’m cheating to take it higher than 15… She swaps between the 0 and 16 fist positions. Gillie grins at Talita. Gillie: (ASL) What’s 2 plus 2? Talita: Uh...  She hesitantly holds up her hand with the binary position 0010. Talita: (sign) …4? Gillie grins wider. Gillie: (ASL) What’s 4 times 2? Talita: (sign) 8. Gillie: (ASL) What’s 30 minus 5 times 4 divided by 11?

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 185

    Jul 12, 2025

  • Gillie: (ASL) Talita! How do you normally count on your hands? Talita puts a hand on her chin and looks away, frowning. Talita: Um… it’s not like ASL. Gillie signs at her forcefully, making Talita turn back with a start. Gillie: (ASL) Show me! Talita: Ok. Talita sits down more comfortably on her rear four legs and holds up a hand. She begins to count with a closed fist, her thumbs postioned outside her curled fingers. Talita: Zero, She first opens her right thumb, leaving the other digits curled. Talita: 1 She next closes her right thumb and extends her right finger, beginning a binary series where curled digits represent zeros, and extended digits represent ones. The current position of her four-digit hand can be represented as such: 0010 Talita: 2 Hand position: 0011 Talita: 3 Hand position: 0100 Talita: 4 Hand position: 0101 Talita: 5 Hand position: 0110 Talita: 6 Hand position: 0111 Talita: 7 Hand position: 1000 Talita: 8 Hand position: 1001 Talita: 9 Hand position: 1010 Talita: 10 Hand position: 1011 Talita: 11 Hand position: 1100 Talita: 12 Hand position: 1101 Talita: 13 Hand position: 1110 Talita: 14 Hand position: 1111 Talita: 15 On the last hand position, Talita repeats the closed fist, but this time with the thumbs inside the curled fingers. Talita: 16.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 184

    Jul 10, 2025

  • Gillie: (ASL) …And I don’t appreciate being made to feel that way by a friend. She glares at Talita, who sweats guiltily. Idrisah: Talita, you know we don’t mind helping you, right? Talita: I know... but... this isn't a rational feeling. I'm not going to "know" myself out of it. Idrisah makes a somber face. Idrisah: Well, trust me– you’re not going to avoid your way out of it either. Being friends means being each other’s problems. Talita: Yeah… Gillie stares wide-eyed at her phone transcription and then bursts into laughter, making Talita flinch and Idrisah look over in confusion. Gillie: (ASL) HAAHAHAHA! You two are so gloomy! Yeah we got a problem—one with a solution! That’s called a PUZZLE! Puzzles are FUN!

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 183

    Jul 08, 2025

  • Gillie: (ASL) Talita… How do you think I feel, asking you to sign for me? My body’s been a “problem” since birth. My off-model nerves are very risky to cut into for audio implants, so I’ve always had external “solutions” pushed on me instead. Inoperably deaf kids are scarce in Jovia, so it was easier for the school system to stick a gadget on me than put me in a class with other signers. The AR glasses gave me migraines and the sign-to-speech function was slow and inaccurate. Talking to other kids was a chore. Insert panel: Gillie as a child talks to a fellow student. She is wearing a pair of large clunky glasses that have a fabric loop over the arms to hang off of her ears. She is signing, and the glasses slowly translate the signs into English audio: "HI—MY—NAME—IS GILLIE." Her classmate responds, confused, with "Why are you waving your hands?" Gillie: (ASL) Nowadays, I’m a lot less shy… But there’s still the lonely kid in me, who grew up feeling like my existence is a big inconvenience for everyone else. Insert panel: Kid Gillie sits dejected and alone at her desk while her classmates socialize with oral language in the foreground.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 182

    Jul 05, 2025

  • Talita: I’ve spent my whole life adapting to fit into spaces that weren’t built for me.  Draft plans for human scale buildings appear in white lines floating in a black void behind her head. Talita: It’s hard to think about my body as something other than… A problem. The apartment dimensions appear in sketchy white lines, surrounding Talita's huge, hunched figure like a tiny box. Talita: I prefer it when it’s only my problem. But… In this case, I guess there’s no way to make it NOT your problem. Gillie looks up from her phone transcript to Talita's face, pensive.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 181

    Jul 03, 2025

  • Gillie is surprised by the transcription on her phone, and looks up confused. Idrisah stares at Talita, coming to a sudden realization. Idrisah: …You have species dysmorphia! Talita hunches with a hand on the floor, other hand tightly gripping her arm. She says nothing, her eyes tracing the ceiling of the apartment that's half a meter too low for her to stand up in, full of furniture too small for her body. Idrisah: That’s… pretty common in cross-species adoption cases, isn’t it? Why didn’t you say anything? Talita scowls and looks away, face bristling. Talita: Because it’s stupid and humiliating and has no solution. Gillie: (ASL) Dysmorphia? Do you want to be a human? Talita: That’s—not… Uh. Well... 

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 180

    Jul 01, 2025

  • Gillie: (ASL) Why?? Gillie looks back to her phone angrily. Idrisah walks closer, looking apologetically between Gillie and Idrisah. Idrisah: Talita, it's a language that was never intended for your body. We won't judge you if you struggle to pick it up. Talita: I’m going to judge myself. Gillie sneers. Gillie: (ASL) For what!? Not being a human?? Talita cringes as if she'd been struck. She makes an admission as heavy as it is small.  Talita: Yes.

    Runaway to the Stars: Page 179

    Jun 28, 2025

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