The elephant in the room.
Transcript
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...
80 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 180”
everentropy
She doesn’t want to be human she just wants to not be…. Like This, which is unfortunately relatable as a nonbinary trans person.
(owo)
i wonder if there’s clade dysmorphia, within humans? a typ adoptee raised on luna by tailers, for example. actually, how close can a typ get to a tailer with biomods?
Thisfox
Closer than Tailer can get to Typ, I expect.
the Inmara
Well, there’s already something similar amongst humans in real life, what with the experiences of therians and otherkin. Not all of us have what many call “species dysphoria”, but it’s not uncommon, and sometimes it is pretty severe.
Whether it’s actually dysphoria or dysmorphia probably varies from person to person.
So, there’s a really good bet that humans in Jay’s comic experience this too sometimes. For all sorts of different reasons.
Gar G
I think she just wants to fit in and feel normal
Tyrone
I knew it ! (leans back in the Comfy chair and smiles smug) Being Human is GREAT ! Top of the Pop.
I think we should all appreciate it more often!
HAL9000
excellent pfp and comment mix
KSClaw
Oooogh poor Talita :< I just want to hug her.
ShTheTDE
I can’t relate to wanting to be human. I want to not be human. I think maybe what she’s feeling is that she doesn’t fit in and she wants to but I can’t know without being her, which I’m not.
Jackie
Reverse therian! (Sorta)
I imagine Gillie is (at least trying to) relating it to her own trans-ness with her question, though it’s not so black and white for Talita
SIGSTKFLT
I mean for Talita it’s the normal way around
kiwitruck
I’ve searched through the whole wiki and I cannot find anything talking about Gillie being trans 😭😭
Not that I’m doubting you, I just got curious, but I cannot find anything related to that! Is that info from the older blog posts?
Spinland
I believe that term was used for “transhuman,” not gender-related.
ryn
no, it is gender-related. gillie is mentioned to be trans in a couple different places, the main one i can find right now is an answer on AMA 2:
https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/AMA/2
(it’s around the middle of the page)
QueerGeologist
Yeah it’s stated in an older blog post. Gilly was raised in the usual Jovian manner, gender neutral until she said she’s a girl, then she transitioned and presumably got fancy future space HRT.
Peridots-PixiWolf!
While I think Ryn was referring to either of these two images: [https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/667962149674631168] [https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/668064201637543936], there’s also a lore page here > [https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/667059434332225536] wherein she’s displaying the trans flag directly! I think that might be….about it when it comes to art/lore that really references it, especially since Gillie is shown pretty feminine in her youngest appearances [see: https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/165981282083%5D
(first time commenting after almost 200 pages too. wonder what guy it’ll give me ^^)
Sabella
I hope this is a pointed reminder to every Talita hater that she has an entire lifetime of being othered for being the lone centaur that she needs to work uphill against, along with the rejection sensitivity that comes with it. If anything, Gillie’s the one being a dink here, as she’s walked a very similar path to Talita, as a transgendered off-model GMH person. Like yes, she should have talked with Gillie about this a lot sooner, but have a little empathy.
Phasma Felis
I don’t hate Talita. I’ve *been* Talita, in many similar situations. Speaking up for my issues and my needs is painful and awful and I’m still really bad at it, but ultimately nothing will get better until I do.
I understand why Talita has been behaving this way, and why Gillie is reacting this way, and both of them are decent people doing their best.
Phasma Felis
I guess I want to be more specific: What I objected to was the idea that Gillie was a monster for speaking up for her own needs at all.
Entropy
Same girlie, same.
(Otherkin/nonhuman moment)
(Makes me wonder about the nonhuman community or if there’s similar for the aliens)
BigRiver
Oh, darling, of course it has a solution. Friendships where you can speak honestly about your pain are part of that solution. I’m so very glad to see you developing some!
Gavyn Lumier
I absolutely love the progression of expressions on Idrisah’s face as the realization hits, and her response is support to a friend who may have just unintentionally come out of the closet so to speak. No judgment, just listening and offering context.
Mr. Son
Such a complicated question because the answer is yes, no, and “I don’t like thinking about it” all at the same time, with a swirling mass of emotions.
But the REAL answer is that it’s the wrong question. But of course it’s going to be one of the first ones lots of people ask when the realize the rough shape of the problem at hand…
Spinland
Gods above and below; I love how this scene played out. Legit dysmorphia issues meet clued-in and sensitive compadres. I love everything about this interaction.
Origamigryphon
Talita looks. So. Tired.
S0glet
This whole talk abt species dysmorphia and how Talita expects herself to do things in the most “human” way possible. makes her and Shyams relationship all the more comforting with how straight forward she is about how amazing Talita is, they both love each other so much and wouldn’t have each other in any other way ugh it’s just so beautiful
Origamigryphon
I know this info is pretty common if you look for it but maybe not a good place in the comments section when we haven’t gotten there yet
S0glet
Oh, Srry my bad :p
e
“Do you want to be a human?” I do kind of like the ignorance, and frankly the projection, coming from that statement from Gillie. Gillie is a trans woman, and an off-model GMH at that. She dealt with her own dysphoria and dysmorphia because she actually wanted to be and considered herself a woman and eliminating the off-model characteristics she did not want.
I’ll admit its very common for people in the trans community to project their own feelings and experiences and self-actualization onto people that appear to experience similar feelings of alienation and discomfort, especially when it brings up the body. But for other people with dysmorphia, sometimes the answer isn’t what they would rather be instead, or changing their body to fit something else. Sometimes a person just wants their body to be treated as naturally as everyone they know around them and not alienated for their differences, whether they are trans or not white or intersex or fat or disfigured or a horse-sized sophont.
eden
I definitely saw that connection with gillies comment! I do think that part of it stems from the idea that’s pushed on us that we’re faking if we aren’t putting in every effort to be and more specifically to “pass” as the gender we identify as, if that makes sense sorry
e
That’s very true! Though I think another big aspect of it is that a lot of trans people really do get euphoria from changing their body and transitioning because they do truly want that for themself. That isn’t necessarily the case with other people with other types of dysmorphia though. If there was magical technology that could just turn one sophont into another, I doubt Talita would be particularly happy about using that as an option.
Jay Eaton
Well… why wouldn’t she want to use a magical transition technology that from her current POV would simultaneously solve all her body image issues and all of her accommodation problems? And lower her cost of living, and make her dating life easier, and let her participate in elemental parts of her home culture such as food, and, and, etc. Sounds euphoric to me. Too bad it’s an unattainable fantasy in this version of reality, better not fixate on it for your entire teenage years.
forest @ swifty's hq!
i love the lightbulb moment here. like. OHHHH. THAT’S WHAT IT IS….. poor talita :((((
Stray Cat
Wow. I didn’t expect species dysmorphia to outright get name-dropped – even if, on reflection, it makes sense. After all, not only is there the mention of it being common in cross-species foster cases, but I would not be shocked if it occasionally reared its ugly head in RTTS’s future humans as well – and that’s just the humans!
Enai
I love that Idrisah not only decorates like a grandma, sometimes she dresses like one, too. I swear my grandma owned that cardigan.
Cugz Arui
i remember talita dodging this in the qna
A
“why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it’s stupid and humiliating and has no solution”
OOOF
I have definitely been in Talitas shoes before. That’s a unique kind of social pain I haven’t really seen depicted often, but man oh man it feels painfully accurate here…
Greebus
It’s nice to see a character with an anxiety disorder like this. I only had OCD, but body dysmorphia and OCD are related diseases (obviously they are different, but they share some symptoms). Aw man, poor Talita. I wonder if a therapist would even agree to see her!
Bunn
Screaming and crying and gnashing my teeth over how Talita in panel 3 gets the only use of the white outline that Jay uses to separate objects and people from the surroundings on this page
Fallingfeather
The sense of being otherrrrr aaaaaaaaa
Hunter
I can definitely get why she has it.
Talia’s whole life has been her sticking out amidst other humans, constantly having to have concessions made to her, constantly being mocked for it, constantly feeling like she’s inconveniencing everyone else (not to mention her shitfuck temps constantly acting like she’s a bomb that’ll go off any minute because she’s not human).
So she ends up feeling ashamed and awkward for not being able to do things that humans can do easily. Then embarrassed about it because she KNOWS it’s stupid and would just make everyone pity her.
Hunter
Also I love how Gillie looks down at the app like “oh. Oh shit.”
mothbird
I’m not surprised to see that Talita does have a word for this and understanding of it… that just hasn’t helped. She’s *culturally* human, but humans never seem to take that at face value. Conversations about accommodating her have often turned to “why don’t you try to become culturally a centaur” – as in the freight elevator example from the AMA, or even things people in the comments have suggested. But, she’s also been pretty explicitly told by centaurs that she isn’t – and can’t be! – culturally a centaur. Because she has no clan, which is the basic structural way in to centaur culture. They weren’t even able to find a clan that would adopt an orphan without kinship relations, when she first came into human care. So even if centaur society can physically accommodate her, she has no shared background of language, stories, cultural practices, even facial expressions… She would face accommodation challenges with centaurs as well, on the cultural side instead of the physical.
So she’s physically a centaur and culturally human (specifically jovian). And what she wants is to be accommodated in human society – which is what Gillie is offering! By helping her figure out sign! But her past experiences with trying to get accommodations have gone so badly, she has a huge terror of trying again. And that combines with a lot of anxiety about doing things that make her aware of her body being different from a humans, and having other people perceive that. I don’t think it’s about “wanting to be human”, so much as… feeling awful when having to confront how hard human things are. Finding it easier to isolate and not participate – in social life, in any given activity – than to deal with the excruciating experience of being reminded that human things aren’t made for you. (Big trans and also disability allegories here.)
Accommodations are the only solution, but accommodations are *hard*, they involve a lot of work and painful awareness and vulnerability to the awareness of others. Sometimes the desire to be accommodated is at war with the desire to just have things be easy, to not face all that wretchedness head on. I get the impression that this is sort of where Talita is stuck right now – in the tension between wanting to be accommodated and not wanting to deal with accommodations as a process, so she’s just in a holding pattern. With her job, housing, social life…
And between this ongoing conversation, and what Mel is up to, she’s about to be pushed to a point of breaking out of that stasis.
buam
There’s also a layer of international adoptee angst. I’m not adopted, so I can’t speak to that experience, but my parents are from different countries so I relate to characters who walk that in between path. I freely claim both my parent cultures as my own, but Talita is in a different situation, with both cultures rejecting her and insisting she belongs with the other group. And unlike me, she’s only familiar with one of her parent cultures, and doesn’t even know her “native” language. There are some interesting parallels with Idrisah’s story.
T-Bird
Oh thank goodness, there is already a term for this, other people have this issue, poor Talita doesn’t have to explain it, when admitting to it is already so hard
Vinemaple
“Do you want to be a human?” Ugh. I’m loving that this conversation is taking place, but, from personal experience, I think we’re going to be here for several pages, unless this conversation gets interrupted.
I’m not criticizing Gillie, what she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know… but trying to explain things about myself, that even I don’t fully understand, to someone with absolutely no frame of reference, who has to keep grasping at oversimplifications just to keep up, has always felt impossible to me. Sisyphean.
Especially because so often, it turns out that they’re just trying to project onto you what THEY think your problem is, and they’re not actually listening. I’m sure Gillie won’t do that, but I”m also sure Talita has experienced just that, having lived around Humans all her life. Can you imagine trying to have this conversation with Mel?
Marcie
Given what’s going on with the secret construction project, maybe they already have in the distant past…
Truther
The middle panel could be anything, but making it a size comparison between humans (and their house) and Talita is brilliant… I love this damn work of art
apprenticeNerd
I know right?? I don’t use a screenreader but I always read the transcripts anyway, just because of things like this. Bless Jay for transcribing everything
JESTER
Happy birthday, Talita! The raw emotion in the last few pages has had me gripped…. man.
Anax Imperator
In my opinion, there have been made huge mistakes in raising Talita.
Example: Sirawit is not only a hybrid who has been ostracized by other avians for this but has also been adopted – however, he, too struggles with many aspects of Jovian culture and yet somehow, hadn’t been imprinted on humans the way Talita has. In a world where something as benign as inter-planetary contacts, alien communities and a general understanding of different customs exist with humankind, I cannot fathom how no one took into consideration that babying Talita by not setting clear boundaries between herself and humans might affect her down the line. It is the most basic of human understanding that if one would raise a bird, a deer or an ape, one does not treat it as human for the sake of the animal, to give it a chance at integrating into its own kind and even it they don’t, it is the morally correct choice to maintain this boundary, out of respect for a different creature, if nothing else.
Why was there no one around to prevent this quite irreversible imprinting from happening? Someone had to figure out what Talita can eat, how her immune system works, how injuries occur – logically, by contacting centaurs or at least an interpretor/researcher; was there never a question asked by any party on developing a healthy state of mind in Talita during her entire early childhood?
Theoneandonlyvoid
Sirawit was raised in a co human-avian city. Talita was raised in nexus jovia that mainly has humans and only occasional visiting centuars. Also there is no real centaur foster care system :/.
colas
??????TALITA IS NOT AN ANIMAL??????
Truther
Well, yes, but babies arent really smart nor fully self-aware which is why it somewhat OK to use such words
Jay Eaton
Least annoying response: “Person” and “animal” are colloquially mutually exclusive categories, so yes Talita isn’t an animal because she is a person.
Annoying pedant response: Talita is an animal and so are you!
Next level annoying pedant response: True, Talita isn’t an animal! “Animalia” is a clade of life that evolved on Earth. 🙂
Cugz Arui
ascendent level pedant response: talita isnt an animal but humans are because she is a fictional character but humans actually exist
JoB
> Next level annoying pedant response: True, Talita isn’t an animal!
> “Animalia” is a clade of life that evolved on Earth.
·
[shrug] That merely points out that, for sake of convenience over precision, we omit peppering our statements with a lot of “xeno-” prefixes or similar … which, given the current topic, I’m actually in favor of. (Says the definition-gasming mathematician.)
Septemberdale
Obviously. That’s the entire problem currently at hand. Humans are animals. Talita, meanwhile an example, and quite a fetching one at that, of whatever the primarily-motile clade on the planet Aun is called.
In any case, animals, alien beasties, and even plants and microbes and all their myriad counterparts across the stars, all have their own distinct sets of instincts and needs that had ought to be respected.
Holotype Specimen
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to compare Talita to an animal per se– she’s a sapient who can already understand that she’s not a human and would perhaps be hurt by being treated differently from other human children, even if it was done in the name of her own interests. However, I definitely agree that mistakes were made in foster care. I’d liken Talita to a child growing up in a family of a different race, where not enough effort was made to introduce said child to their native culture and language in addition to their own, and not having any role models or community to look up to. This can result in the child feeling lost and isolated– knowing they’re visibly not a part of their family’s race, but not knowing how to integrate into their own culture due to their upbringing. I think Sirawit doesn’t have dysmorphia because Avians have a much bigger social footprint in the society he lived in, and he was exposed to their customs and language from an early age, so it stands to reason he wouldn’t feel the same way Talita does.
Granted, exposing Talita to other Centaurs probably was very hard given their sociopolitical standing in RTTS, and I think her lore even states that Jovian foster care did attempt to reach out to other clans to no avail. But still, I think more of an attempt to even interact with other Centaurs or expose her to her own language (even if it’s Shess and not a Sunchaser one) would have done a lot. Plus, I wonder if there might have been a reason this didn’t happen, other than the scarcity of space-faring Centaurs– did the humans around Talita (perhaps unconsciously) view Centaur customs as barbaric or savage, and thus didn’t make the effort? Perhaps we’ll find out in the next few pages….
buam
Taking it a step further, Talita is an international adoptee who was never taught her natal tongue or culture and was instead expected to fully integrate in her adopted culture. So she has species dysmorphia + the profound loss of her natal culture, which I’m sure she has many complicated feelings about.
Undercooked Mothman
They tried. https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/658658527894749184/centaur-aliens-start-small-and-dont-stay-that
Jay Eaton
Talita’s upbringing was in some ways a miracle (as in, she is a healthy adult and not dead or severely ill) and in some ways it has very obviously failed her (social isolation and imprinting). How this happened will be a major subject of the second book.
hurgaburga
it seems very disturbing that THAT is the standard for a miracle for a centaur being raised in a non-centaur society
HAL9000
it seems like talita was a one-in-a-million case, though, so i guess she sets the only precedent. im sure its probably happened to other sophonts- theres a human baby out there being raised by a well-meaning dunhouse, or a bugferret raised by a human freighter, or a human growing up with centaurs somehow- but this story isnt about them, its about talita and her experiences. and in her case, well. it was the best they did
Varyon
Technically, Talita should have died as an infant – not because humans couldn’t be expected to raise her successfully, but because she was either an unwanted or, more likely, unauthorized child, and the normal centaur response in that case is infanticide (if you follow the link Undercooked Mothman provided, you’ll note that the local clans they asked suggested culling her). As I suggested before, I believe her mother had a better-than-average (for a centaur) understanding of humans (namely, “These things will pack-bond with a toaster without much prodding”) and perhaps higher-than-average (again, for a centaur) empathy for their child, and so loaded Talita up into a cat carrier (presumably scrounged from somewhere) and dropped her off at a foster home.
Enai
Unwanted centaur babies are straight up killed. In fact, the advice the Jovian foster care agency received from Centaurs after asking them how best to raise the baby they found in a crate was to kill it. Centaurs have large litters and routinely cull the weakest offspring, and “not having a clan” is the ultimate weakness in centaur society.
.
For details, see the link Undercooked Mothman posted.
A Box Of Fox
Wooooo, second book!
)-(
see, this works w irl nonsapient earth animals bc the primary goal is to ensure they can survive on their own as adults. talita would have to be able to integrate into a literal *alien society* with alien socioemotional and psychological needs. at this point in time (in-universe) this is not possible. as i see it, there truly were only two options: raise her as a human child, or cull her. i think they did the best they possibly could have with what they had
EveryZig314
The transcript text for this page is also really good.
Eux
:((( the words are out, and hopefully with time they’ll take some of the pain with them
un_pogaz
And, Hop, all Gillie anger become ash.
I’ve been thinking about it and I think it would be extremely beneficial for Talita to do this ASL training/adaptation as it would allow her to “regain control of her body”. It realy the perfect opportunity do deal with that. Of course, dysmorphia isn’t so easy to fix, especially since Talita has a long-standing, deeply internalized dysmorphia, but it would be a great first step to regaining confidence in who she is.
Now that the heart of the problem is know, Gillie and Idrisah will be able to approach this subject with the appropriate tact. Personally, I’d strongly reiterate the invitation and let Talita leave to think about coming back later. It’s better and important for her that she make the first move about it (even if I recognize that forcing a little her hand at the beginning is also to be considered).
pobo
tlaita :((((( 🙁 L(( 🙁
HAL9000
good to know boob lights are still around in the distant space future