Gillie was born without developed cochlea and stunted auditory nerves, so an "audio implant" in this case would not be the modern cochlear implant that some of you are familiar with. It would be a matrix-grown replacement of the cochlea and the missing nerves. This is tricky because Gillie's bones and other organs are not in the places they "should" be, so the replacement would have to be a bespoke matrix design, which has a much higher chance of failure than a standardized human or catgirl matrix-grown organ. This in combination with the invasive nature of the operation and the risk that she would outgrow the organ design by the time it could be implanted, her dads decided to forgo implants and learn to communicate with her in sign language instead.
As an adult, Gillie has little desire to disrupt her life with an invasive operation that has a considerable chance of failure in order to gain a new sense she would need years to learn how to actually interpret. Not that this decision doesn't have its obvious drawbacks... Jovia's routine attitude towards surgical correction in disabled infants has resulted in less deaf and hard of hearing people in their population, but also a society less prepared to accommodate people that implants can't help.
Transcript
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.
58 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 182”
woim
The past several pages have convinced me: I NEED to buy the graphic novel when it comes out <3
$ilverware
oofs all around!
Artor
Where did Gillie’s whiskers go? They are pretty prominent in young Gillie. Does she pluck or shave? Whiskers are sensory organs, so that sounds profoundly uncomfortable.
Peter Jensen
Yes, she plucks them:
https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/667850537159491584/shyam-have-you-ever-brokenbentcut-off-a-whisker
https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/668064201637543936/gillie-why-do-you-hate-your-whiskers-and-pull-them
It’s also part of hiding her genetic modifications to head off bigotry from both humans and some avians (“blasphemous speciation!”).
Phasma Felis
Big talk for a species with five (5) actual extant subspecies. (But the Tiiliit probably aren’t happy about that either)
Viashino_wizard
The traditional Tiiliitian explanation for the different subspecies of Avian is basically their equivalent of the Tower of Babel
0xabad1dea
it’s mentioned somewhere (the character Q&As, probably) that yes, she plucks them and yes, it’s very uncomfortable
40
Real.
Juliene
It’s in this one
https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/667850537159491584/shyam-have-you-ever-brokenbentcut-off-a-whisker?source=share
blythe
She plucks them. One of the other characters mentions how much of a freak she is for doing so lol
TotallySomebody
“your friend is scary 😨”
furubatsu
She plucks them, in her own words “If I wanted hair on my face I’d stop taking estrogen”
Vinemaple
Or, “If I wanted a big bushy mustache, I wouldn’t have gone on puberty blockers,” from a character AMA, which I think is how a lot of us who have only read the actual comic found out Gillie was Trans.
JJSANGUINE
Sorry, I meant to post this as it’s own comment.
Stray Cat
There’s something that a lot of people don’t seem to account for when talking about surgery: it always has a chance of failure. Even a low chance is still a chance. I personally know someone who had an operation with a 95% chance of success, and wound up in the other 5%. Needing custom implants that would come with a much higher chance of failure? Yeah, I don’t blame Gillie.
.
I recall a few pages back, someone pointed out that this whole conversation between Gillie and Talita is doing something similar to the earlier conversation with Isidrah (albeit starting on a tenser note): helping them discover that they have something in common that they can bond over. For Isidrah, it’s feeling like an outsider in your own family (Isidrah)/species (Talita) and trying to learn their language accidentally reinforcing that feeling. And now, it’s being ostracised and made to feel like a problem, all because society doesn’t know how to accommodate the inoperably deaf (Gillie)/an enormous alien of a species that’s still poorly-understood (Talita).
Teod
…and even the AR glasses are not designed for these ears.
Honk
Oh man, I didn’t even think about how she would need custom wetware because of her “off-model” biology. Here i was just thinking she just chose to forgo implants for personal reasons
un_pogaz
The second panel is realy great. They are both presented symmetrically, mirroring each other, both in expression but also in perceived size and eye height (thanks to the sofa for Gillie).
Stray Cat
Seconded here! I feel like the visual storytelling has really stepped up in this whole sequence – in particular how it’s played with the perception of Talita’s size. She’s appeared smaller than Gillie, then had her larger size emphasised, and now she and Gillie appear to be at equal height. As if they finally see eye-to-to-eye.
Vinemaple
I fully expected Gillie to flip emotions and hug-attack Talita, but… I think this is better. This page made me realize that maybe I’ve been taking Talita’s side without realizing it. Hugs can come later, after everyone achieves understanding.
Also, I wish North Americans, IRL, could still have conversations like this, where everyone’s listening and considering what each other says, and nobody’s trying to “win” or undermine each other or vilify each other or silence each other. Conversations about life experiences and feelings, instead of ideologies. And maybe agreeing to disagree, for real, while still remaining friends and colleagues instead of becoming enemies or shunning each other.
As far as I can tell, I was overseas for most of the five years over which we lost the last parts of that. For me, it didn’t happen gradually, and nowhere has felt truly like home, ever since. It’s like living in some fake TV reality-show version of my community, where everything is dumbed down, scripted, and optimized for maximum chaos and conflict.
Damn. I’m sorry if that’s oversharing, but I would like to leave this here, if it’s okay with the rest of you? I guess Gillie got me in a Mood.
Jay
The problem of those kinds of non-conversations have always existed, but I think the internet and social media have really amplified that problem. Mature, level-headed conversations still exist – but they can be hard to find, and they require a lot of patience, trust, and emotional maturity. This conversation (in the comic) started with assumptions and loud outbursts and evasion, and slowly worked its way to this.
I can completely understand the feeling of these conversations being drowned out, though. Complex topics require complex conversations, and algorithms often flatten concepts – it feels frustrating to constantly see non-conversations of people trying to yell louder over each other – from strangers, to family, to politics. It cuts connection and prevents understanding. That being said, these kinds of real discussions can still happen, even if they don’t start that way. I think i can understand the feeling of not really having a home – what’s a home for me, when my family and friends are spread in so many places? when there’s more than one house I can consider a home?
I sincerely hope you find people and places that give back that depth and complexity to conversations, and that truly hear you – and that you can truly listen to.
Solidago
Sounds like you’ve had some really bad conversations. Sorry to hear that. I can confirm that disagreeing Americans are still having conversations focused on mutual understanding (well, maybe with a splash of debate) – I can think of a couple with family and strangers within the past year. I think I know how you feel though, about life not seeming quite real sometimes. I’ve been deliberately having deeper conversations with my friends since realizing I needed it. Thanks for putting your thoughts out there.
Bright
It’s really not helping the “conversation” around disabilities when the primary places online to discuss them are online silos favoring extremely short form formats (short video and/or 140 character tweets/skeets) antithetical to nuanced, proper discussion. It also really isn’t helping that these silos are designed to make it harder to find people. Instead, they go for things that are aesthetically inoffensive and/or things that drive user engagement (aka revenue) by showing them things designed to piss them off specifically. There’s no community; there’s only engagement and engagement based on who’s got the snappiest “own” or who can get people the angriest.
Vinemaple
Thank you, everyone.
sprigg
oh, did gillie give talita a sign name? in the first panel, it doesn’t like like she’s fingerspelling.
Lettuce Vervain
she did yea! it was in an AMA ages ago i think, but talita’s sign name is that neck-pinching thing she does when shes nervous. its cute 🙂
godspeed
Sorry, I was looking for the AMA and forgot to refresh first to check for other replies *drop*
godspeed
Yeah, Jay mentioned it in an AMA.
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/668248328808677376/enamored-with-the-signs-that-gillie-has-taught-us#notes
Talitas sign name is pinching your throat, cause it’s something Talita does when she is nervous.
sprigg
ty for the link! that’s really cute. i wonder what gillie’s sign name is
AnaKaye
Is Gillie’s balance also affected by the missing structures and nerves?
Light_In_The_Fog
Thats a super good question! I wonder if a loss of that sense would make Gillie more or less comfortable in 0g?
Kumquatq
It probably use to bother her alot and probably made learning to walk a bit harder growing up but tons of people are born deaf.
Septemberdale
Well yeah, but to my admittedly-far-from-perfect knowledge of biology, most of those people born deaf are deaf because of problems with specific neurons (either in the brain or the auditory nerve itself), not because they’re effectively missing half their cochlea.
Gabriella
So as someone who’s deaf because of issues with my vestibular aqueducts, which are important in balance, I learned how to walk, ride a bike, etc, fine (though balancing on a bike took longer than most people, if I remember correctly) – my balance issues mainly come with stuff like standing on one leg, walking on a balance beam, standing in a fencing position, etc – I essentially have the balance of a senior citizen even though I’m pretty young. I’d assume that if Gille does have balance issues, it would show up more with that kind of high-balance stuff rather than everyday things!
(Also, due to that, I don’t have a sense of dizziness and can’t get car/seasick, which might be helpful on spaceships, depending on how the acceleration feels!)
Stray Cat
Gillie was able to vault over the couch and grab Talita with no issue a few pages back, so if her balance is affected, clearly not enough to stop her from doing that!
dokki
Something I will always love about RTTS is how real the conversations about ableism and accommodation are, while also being in an alien context. 300 years in the future, disabled people will still exist, and novel ways to be disabled will exist.
Ruby
Ugh. That’s a hell of a situation. A “fix” that leaves those with more needs behind isn’t really a fix.
Chase Wanderstar
What do you mean by that? I think I understand the sentiment, but also, we live in an imperfect world. A lot of the time the best we can do (either reasonably given limited resources (be those resources actual materials or sophont-hours of specialized work), or at all with present technological constraints) at any particular moment to alleviate a particular problem still can’t manage to meet everyone’s needs at once and leave some percentage of outliers unsatisfied. Other times, multiple people’s needs necessarily interfere with one another (for example a blind person’s need for clear auditory cues vs. a person with a panic disorder’s need to avoid sudden loud noises).
Adrienne
Something can simultaneously be “what was considered the best given circumstances and individuals involved” and “not a true solution.”
JoB
> best we can do (either reasonably given limited resources
> […] or at all with present technological constraints)
·
I’d like to add a third category: Outright competing needs.
(As in, wheelchair vs. white cane users on the topic how high curbstones should be …)
JoB
(… scratch that, you added that category yourself in the next sentence. Sorry for the noise.)
Vinemaple
I am also starting to realize that nobody ever bothered to teach Gillie to speak. We know she can vocalize. I expect Nexus Jovia doesn’t even have speech therapists for the Deaf and HoH, because they rely so heavily on technology. Most of the Deaf people I’ve known IRL have learned to speak, or were in the process of learning. I’ve spent just a very little time in Asia, in non-tourist areas, unable to speak, read, or understand the language, and it’s unbelievably hard to get by like that. One usually ends up shuttling between the two or three English-speaking facilities one finds, and unable to manage anywhere else without the greatest difficulty, never able to really understand what’s going on around them. And that’s with fully-functioning senses.
Marcie
I do wonder if there are private practices by really niche specialists (well, niche for this era). Maybe it’s harder to find a speech therapist that does that at a government clinic, but private is more expensive so Gillie’s dad’s just didn’t bother
40
I mean, she is a linguist. It’s probably a lot easier to learn as an adult when you know how speaking works. And maybe if she didn’t ever fully learn the skill she might’ve just been curious at times what like speaking feels like and has tried to say some words right with Idrisah’s help.
I mean that’s how I’d feel, I’d want to know what all this talking hype was about. 😭
Dyl pickle
I think personally that the reason she hasn’t learned to speak is probably more linked to the plot, as in it would be less impactful if she could speak and didn’t have to sign to communicate to Talita, as it would not require Talita to be fluent in sign to understand her. An in plot thought though as to why she might not have learned to speak is possibly a combination of what other commentators have mentioned of very few resources to teach deaf/HOH people to speak and a stubbornness as an adult. Gillie has been shown to be a very driven and somewhat stubborn character, so I would not put it past her to commit to not learning to speak at a young age, and sticking with that into adulthood. Also (spoilers for outside of book extra comic posted on tumblr and characters not present in comic yet) Jay has explored a lot of themes of “asking for help/getting x accomodation/ trying do do something the non-“”normal”” way is admitting defeat. Obviously this is being explored right now in Talitas unwillingness to use Gillies help with adapting hand sign, but Jay also posted a bonus comic a few years back about Shaym and her college girlfriend about the same thing, with her unwillingness to get a back brace to support her spine to prevent chronic pain. Obviously Gillie doesn’t need to speak, and these are not exact comparisons- she is not actively harming herself or others by choosing not to speak. But I do think that if this was the case it would make a lot of sense to both the themes of rtts and also to her character
mossrabbit
not trying to be hostile, but i think the notion that gillie should speak or know how to speak is misguided here. she’s profoundly (as in, 0 hearing, able to identify noise only by pressure and vibration) deaf. it wouldnt help her or make her life easier to be able to speak, because it would be purely for the benefit of hearing people she’s already been forced to accommodate all her life, and it would be accomplished with immense difficulty to her when, proportionally, its far easier for people to learn sign as there are way more resources for it, meanwhile learning to talk as an adult (and a deaf adult at that!) most likely has way fewer resources
sorry. that got a bit heated i think. im not trying to start any fights here, i promise. i just think saying gillie should learn/should have learned how to communicate in an abled/hearing way is doing her a disservice.
Vinemaple
Thank you for pointing this out! I don’t feel qualified to make any statements over whether Gillie *should* have been taught to speak, and two of the three Deaf acquaintances I’ve met had very different situations to Gillie.
What would you say to a notion that having some ability to speak a vocal language, and read lips, whatever is practical for the individual to learn, would be a useful utility to have in their back pocket if proper accommodations fail? Assuming, of course, that it doesn’t become, “you can speak and read lips now, just do that” or, “why can’t you just become fluent in a language your body isn’t equipped to communicate in?” as the ableist attitudes would usually be.
I mainly am taking issue with the Jovian school system and government for apparently doing the bare minimum to accommodate her. They just threw some (not even properly adapted!) technology at her and said, “Problem solved!” Unless the girl with the pom-poms is really oblivious, they didn’t even bother to explain sign language to Gillie’s classmates.
Marcie
It’s interesting to see these two slowly have more in depth conversations when most of the audience knows these characters from pieces outside canon/set way in the future. I’m willing to bet that this is the first really personal conversation these two have EVER had together
Solidago
Oh Gillie looks so weary.
Vinemaple
She says “it was EASIER” for the school to do what they did. I feel that, so hard. I’ve been on both sides of that.
Moonie
awww im fully catched up! i’ve been thoroughly enjoying this, cant wait to see more! c:
Vinemaple
Congratulations! Welcome to the agony of waiting two to three days for the next part of the conversation. I suggest revisiting the comments section on off days.
thegriffin88 is pissed
Yup. You try being a first grader with an anxiety disorder. Of course it’s not going to be diagnosed. You can’t explain it. You’re just ‘shy’. If my mother hadn’t threatened to sue the school I’d have been stuck in the ‘special’ class.
And of course being easily scared makes that some kind of game. Why do I hate interacting with people beyond the scope of the internet? Because of how you all treated me. You KNOW you picked on someone in school. Well I’m what’s left, and angry person who will never get over what you did to me. I’m YOUR fault.
JJSANGUINE
Maybe I’m biased as someone who only gained the kind of disabilities where surgical intervention is an option as an adult, but the idea of such being routine for non life threatening conditions is so terrifying to me. Like what if the surgery for congenital disabilities complicates treatments for acquired ones. When the patient is a baby they can’t tell you pertinent information about their body as well.
Marcie
This reminds me of how Stevie Wonder became blind because he was born premature and put in an incubator with too much oxygen. Trying to help/fix one thing lead to a completely unexpected outcome
Vinemaple
I’m both, and I hear what you’re saying. I was a lolcow all through school, but three or four times I did try to gain cred by attempting to pick on people I thought I could put below me. But I was terrible at it. I still hurt people, but for nothing. Public schools have their own caste systems that exist simultaneously with, and overlap, the general society’s caste and class systems.
Aough
Public Schools my Beloathed
thegriffin88
And we should let that happen? I see your kid doing that shit to someone else and I’ll swing them against a brick wall.