Seems like the perfect opportunity! Wait, what do you mean this is the second to last page of the chapter?
Transcript
Talita starts responding to Gillie, but the construction noise starts again, obscuring her answer. Gillie looks down at her CC app in confusion as it transcribes nonsense.
App transcript:
Talita: Can't sure
Talita: Make
Talita: Spis
Talita: All of
Talita: An
Talita: More
SFX: RRRRRRRRRR
Gillie: (ASL) Um, could you repeat that? The CC isn’t working.
Idrisah: (ASL) Oh, it must be the construction noise…
Gillie smiles at Talita.
Gillie: (ASL) How about trying it in sign, then?
16 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 161”
thegriffin88
Go for it Tali!
Apollo235
Aww, Talita’s voice registration happened off screen? That’s a shame, I would have liked to see how that process worked
Apollo235
Also question, were the construction noises going on this whole time, but Idrisah and Talita could just tone it out. Or did it do the thing where it has the uncanny ability to only make noise when important things are happening?
Enai
Idrisah and Talita can hear just fine (certainly better than Gillie’s phone), so the construction noises did not impede their communication. I suppose they could just tune the noise out, same as one would while talking on the bus.
Bear-on-a-tricycle
I think I understand that Talita doesn’t like to do sign language because she’s embarrassed by her hands not being human enough? Humans have very dexterous hands and wrists. But what if Talita doesn’t like to sign because it actually causes her pain in her wrists and hands and she just doesn’t say anything? There are most likely some signs human hands can do without pain but Centaur hands can’t do because of being painful? For humans with arthritis, signing must be very difficult because the hands can’t move the way they need to.
Adrienne
I believe your first notion is closer to the correct answer, that Talita experiences body dismorphia and adapting hand signs makes her feel self-conscious.
Vinemaple
Also four fingers, articulated differently, but ASL already has workarounds in real life, for people who are missing fingers, or, I believe, a whole hand.
Guest
Oh, no. I predict Talita’s gonna gallop away like last time.
Common Handle
Cmonnnnn Talita, give it a shot 🙂 better now than later!
JoB
[expects situation to devolve into the old IT joke of “establishing voice contact – please yell into keyboard”]
Lilac
Wait but the cc has talita’s name registered in it now while before in like chapter 3 it just said unknown ….. (if I remember right, i may be wrong)….. she registered her……..
Vinemaple
Another bit of evidence that while they all liked each other, saving Bip has drawn them much closer together than they previously were.
Mintaka
I like the detail that we also can’t tell what Talita is saying in the first two panels, putting us as the audience in a similar spot as Gillie. We just know she’s saying *something.*
Phasma Felis
Poor Gillie can’t even lipread Talita. Especially not if she keeps her trunk pointed backwards. But probably not even then.
Mintaka
I think it’s possible she could learn- Centaur lips seem similar enough to human lips to not have much trouble forming English phonemes, so the shapes they take while speaking might be legible enough after some practice. That’s given that Gillie ever learned how to lip-read in the first place, or cares to do so for this one specific instance, and that Talita keeps her trunk pointed towards Gillie whenever she’s speaking. In the end it’s probably just best for Talita to start signing.
Trees
I see Gillie has the sofa arm perching gene. Probably a pretty common crossover with the catgirl gene, come to think of it.