Idrisah ghosted her mom for two weeks because she didn't want to tell her she couldn't make it to the reunion, and in doing so she has made things so much worse.
Transcript
Idrisah’s phone chimes in her pocket.
SFX: RING bzzzzz
She takes it out and looks at the screen. It's a new voice message from her mother. She looks at it trepidatiously. Gillie sidles up to her and grimaces.
Gillie: (ASL) …You have to.
Idrisah waves at Gillie and Talita to enter the apartment without her as she walks off towards the side of the road for more privacy.
Idrisah: (ASL) Be right back!
Talita looks back curiously anyways, her acute hearing picking up the audio of Idrisah's phone.
SFX: clk
Idrisah's mom: Ya habibti… if you can't go, that’s fine. There will be another family reunion. But this is the first thing you say to us? In two weeks? I was worried sick! I thought something had happened to you! It’s difficult enough, having to wait 6 minutes for your voice to reach me. But being ignored? Throwing my questions into space everyday, with no response? Do you have any idea how much it hurts me?
69 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 199”
Lion
seems like once again we are having a case of “Being so anxious you end up hurting your loved ones by accident”
godspeed
I am not sure why everyone is calling Idrisah’s mom abusive or manipulative.
Telling her daughter she is hurt after she thought something has happened to her cause she wasn’t replying for two weeks and finding out that she just avoided replying is not immature or abuse.
I am sure that Idrisah’s mom is aware that her daughter is not comfortable with telling them she can’t join the meet up, but that doesn’t mean she can’t share her frustration about this lack of communication. Imho it’s much more matured and healthier to directly communicate her feelings, especially since the conversation has a lag of at least 6 minutes. Tiptoeing around the matter won’t help at all, and Idrisah could stand up for herself and tell her mother that she didn’t wanted to disappoint them.
Sometimes things sound harsh but it’s better to be direct about them. (Also it’s sometimes hard to stay composed at all times when talking to family. It’s not like rewriting a tedious work mail over and over – and if you said something that wasn’t exactly what you wanted to express there is always time to make up for it afterwards. 4 sides of a message Yadda Yadda, you can’t possibly always predict how somebody understands what you’re saying anyway.)
Vinemaple
It’s probably through personal experience. It is for me.
Duke 1337-O
Yeah, no, I agree with you. Abuse isn’t “when people are loud at me.” People are allowed to be upset, hurt, and angry when you treat them poorly, especially when they’re your family. If you let your mom think you might have died and ghost her for weeks, she’s allowed to tell you off!
theplushfrog
Agreed, people being upset with you =/= abuse, especially when you’ve done something like ignore them. We empathize with Idrisah because she’s a protag and we’ve seen a lot of her side of the story and her anxiety. However anxiety isn’t an excuse or a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. It’s very possible that if this story was from her mom’s pov, we would be saying bad things about Idrisah instead.
But also, sometimes family relationships are complicated. Even if no one is purposefully being bad or mean to one another, the relationship can still be grating or unhealthy for one or both people involved. Sometimes someone else’s anxiety can be bad for you. Sometimes someone else’s love can feel like smothering even with the best intentions. Things don’t have to be abusive for a relationship to be complex, especially family relationships.
MyUniverseinaBox
Facts
Rex
Exactlyyyy
Darth Biomech
Emotional manipulation, my favorite. /s
Jordan Aster
You really don’t need to say things like that. You’re misinterpreting this scene and the entirety of Idrisah’s mother’s character.
Duke 1337-O
Blud, somebody communicating their pain to you isn’t emotional manipulation, especially if you’re the cause. If you hurt somebody you love, they’re allowed to tell you how and why, and you’re obligated to listen to them. If somebody says “you hurt me, and here’s what you did that hurt me, and that makes me upset” and you feel bad, they’re not abusively manipulating you, you just have a conscience.
Mister Muse
so if someone who you cared about, who’s terribly far away from you, ghosted you for so long that you started to worry that something might’ve happened to them, you’d be totally cool with it? come on. even if her mother isn’t perfect, this specifically isn’t manipulative.
cinna
I know Talita was jacked already, but has she bulked up a bit since the beginning? Her limbs look extra beefy this chapter, compared to other times we’ve seen her without sleeves. Neat to notice the results of all that weightlifting and whatnot.
Knowing that her activity levels help to modulate her hormone cycles in the absence of typical environmental cues– is there also a feedback loop, wherein hormone cycles affect how readily she builds muscle?
Gar G
Honestly she’s got a point….
But honestly I can relate, SO MUCH to not wanting to say anything and just… ghosting…
Hanroz
Especially when your in a bubble in a vacuum where if something goes wrong, you could immediately asphyxiate.
Vinemaple
It’s really hard to come up with something to say, when one fully expects anything one says will be thrown back in one’s face, and used as a weapon against oneself.
Kitkat
I mean didn’t Gillie kinda do the same thing to Talita? Talita having species dysmorphia making learning sign language difficult and Gillie’s response being “well how do you think I feel?”
hessian
shes so me 🤎💔🤎💔🤎💔
Arcstone
Is there like a frequency thing happening here? Like she can hear the phone, but not idrisah?
Or is idrisah just not talking?
Senaru
I believe it’s a voice mail, not a live-call happening right now, if I read it correctly?
Arcstone
oooooooh, I didn’t see that. : P
hessian
i think this is a voice memo sent to idrisah to account for lag – idrisah will probably respond to it with another memo and repeat etc. can’t imagine live voice calls working at such a distance ehee
Athelind Llewellyn Long
Back in the ’80s, I was in Alaska calling to Southern California. The phone signal got bounced off at least one satellite. The lightspeed lag couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, but it was still infuriating (especially since the person on the other end just didn’t get what was going on and kept trying to interrupt).
Momo
Where are Talita’s ears, btw? I know this website has some ooolld art that mentions where centaur ears were, but I’m curious if theyre in that same general region as before (like, up above the eyes). I suppose for her peers it’d be easy to forget she can hear super well, as she doesn’t have -visible- ears, I definitely also forgot…. But one mustn’t forget the owl-like face shape!!
Rad Internet Stranger
They’re in the same spot, you can see that when she puts her earphones in Eshowe working out during the first (?) chapter
JoB
…actually, the close-up of her using the bug ferrets‘ headset gives an even better view than her using her own earphones on pages 32+33 …
Peter Jensen
Seems to be the same place as shown here, yes:
https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/686380210838487040/talitas-ears-are-hidden-above-her-eyes-similar
Momo
ah thank you! i’d forgotten about this instance
creetur
Reminds me of how owl ears look, without the whole.. looking at their eyeball thing
ABSolutely-OK
AAAA I’ve been thrown into this comic like a week ago and I’m in love with all of the characters! I’ve been so excited to check in on the website every few days and see that there’s a new page!! Can’t wait to see what will happen with the rest of the comic! And almost at page 200 already!!!
friendly spacer
I think the mom’s reaction is fair. I assume they have a good relationship otherwise. Ghosting someone for 2 weeks while they’re trying to organize a get-together like this … I’d expect her to (at the very least) cancel properly if she was my friend/family member. I empathize with Idrisah like I empathized with Talita about her ASL hang-ups. But by running from the confrontation, they both messed up in very human ways. It’s a good thing they got Gillie for some much warranted reality checks.
Frankie
Agreed. Sometimes the only way to work through a conflict is by talking to somebody about how their actions have affected you. As long there is trust between both parties and both sides are taking care to listen to one another, this doesn’t seem worrying to me.
(Of course, we don’t know much about Idrisah’s relationship with her mom yet, but I do not think this conversation serves as evidence that it is a bad one.)
kate
thank you!!! i get that being told you’ve hurt someone else is uncomfortable, but it isnt abusive or emotionally manipulative in and of itself 😭 sometimes you have to text people back, y’all!
Laura
I think there’s an error in the transcript? It says “Idrisah waves at Gillie and Idrisah to enter the apartment …” Should it say “Idrisah waves at Gillie and Talita…”?
Jay Eaton
Fixed.
Adrienne
It also says “Idrisah waves at Gillie and Talita to enter the apartment without her *as walks* off towards the side of the road for more privacy” instead of “as she walks” (sorry)
Jay Eaton
Also fixed…
oh6
This mostly gives me the feeling of discovering that a friend’s email folder was readable by anyone on the undergrad computer system.
Uh
Back at it again with the super hearing
Rad Internet Stranger
“Do you have any idea how much that hurts me” a clear sign of emotional immaturity. If Idrisah’s mother was emotionally mature she would have said “are you ok??”
Reminds me of my grandmother. I’m very lucky to have an emotionally mature mum lol
Vinemaple
Thank you…
The moment Idrisah checks in, it’s straight to how much Idrisah made her feel bad. Next will be how it’s Idrisah’s responsibility to make her feel better.
Rad Internet Stranger
No problem!! It’s not ok to immediately beat someone down instead of asking them whether they’re alright. It’s ok to let it be known that you were worried and equally ok to be mad about being ghosted for so long but to turn around and make it out like it’s immediately their fault without knowing what happened is actually a form of abuse!! Thank you for seeing what I see lol
Adrienne
Sounds to me like totally normal communication lol. Ghosting someone for two weeks is going to hurt them and it’s not a bad thing to make it known that it hurts. Idrisah’s mom was worried, that’s why she’s sharing her pain – and I say this as someone who sometimes ghosts people as a way of avoiding problems
jimmy
no
eden
seriously everyone projecting their own trauma onto a woman they know nothing g about otherwise is ridiculous. someone saying you hurt them isn’t abuse outright god damn. (and I say this with an abusive mother who told me I make her feel unsafe and that I’m a psycho because I didn’t let her talk over me while trying to ask a college clerk questions about my tuition)
freak on a leash
she ghosted her for 2 weeks, “now that i know you’re okay i’m hurt you ignored me for two weeks” is a totally reasonable thing to say. we clearly are not getting every sentence of this conversation
mars
“i’m hurt you ignored me” isn’t actually what idrisah’s mother is saying here. she’s upset that Idrisah *isn’t* in any kind of danger after she (Idrisah’s mother) spent two weeks getting worked up over it, which is not a very nice thing to hear from anyone as the first thing they say to you in two weeks.
eden
is that really what you’re getting from this??? you think someone being upset that they had NO WAY of even knowing their kid was okay let alone do anything to help is abuse?? I bet you were one of the people that called gillie abusive because she was sick of being ghosted by talita. if this is how you handle relationships then you’re the problem. period.
mars
@eden who’s projecting their trauma now?
i don’t think you thought this through. or read my comment correctly. if “not a very nice thing to say” is the same as abuse in your opinion, i don’t think i can relate to your situation.
Vinemaple
First, if one’s internalized “that’s not a nice thing to hear” is an accusation of abuse, one has probably picked that up from enduring an abusive situation.
Second, this probably isn’t the first one of these messages Idrisah has received. It’s just the first one we get to eavesdrop on. Idrisah’s mom may have been sending message after message like this, since Eid. We also don’t know what Idrisah has been sending back.
Third, it’s possible that both characters are partially at fault. It happens, and it doesn’t justify either of them.
freak on a leash
it is, actually, what she is saying there. she’s upset idrisah ignored all attempts at communication for two weeks for no good reason. it’s kind of difficult to imagine how you’d think she’s upset that idrisah is okay. she spent two works getting worked up because, while idrisah’s job is not especially dangerous on its own, she works on a reasonably dangerous jobsite. you would worry too if your loved one working on, like, a nuclear submarine, suddenly ghosted for two weeks. who knows how or when the news of a disaster would get to you if something happened?
Jordan Aster
Most of these comments are just trying to find excuses to call a brown woman abusive or manipulative. We haven’t even gotten to know this character. You know what’s interesting, though? Nobody is scrutinizing other characters for more agregious things, but everyone is jumping on this barely known character.
Ray
YES. THANK YOU. you’ve perfectly summed up how this uncharitable takes are sounding. treating idrisah’s mom like she’s some domineering abusive manipulator based on like two pages of dialogue is, quite frankly, really bad reading comprehension, and i think it’s kind of shitty to demonize a non-white character we barely even know anything about.
TotallySomebody
I wonder how Idrisah would/does feel about Talita listening in like that. I get that she has super hearing, but it’s still not difficult to just… Tune it out, y’know?
samkee00
I find it hard to tune out single conversations/streams of noise if they’re all I can hear or the easiest thing to hear, so not necessarily
Jay Eaton
Talita is a habitual snoop… people don’t generally know the extent of her hearing so she keeps getting away with it :/
Adrienne
Good news for us readers though. Spill that tea, Talita’s impressive hearing
JoB
… Talita needs to linger nearby Mel’s office more often. :-3
Zuorai
I thought her phone was on speaker but I think it’s just what shes hearing?? I Hope it’s just her
Marcie
Transcript says that Talita can hear it with her superhearing
Zuorai
Ah. Cursed to be the Eternal Eavesdropper
Redacted
I like the detail of Gillie reacting to Idrisah’s reaction and not the phone.
Vinemaple
Oh, from personal experience, I think she has the exact same face and beads of sweat in panel 2. I don’t know if she even fully sees what Gillie’s signing, or hears anything but her own heartbeat.
Marcie
Perhaps this is Idrisah’s ‘Runaway’ moment. You can ghost your family all you want if you’re constantly travelling!
Zuorai
Boooooooo
/lighthearted
thegriffin88 (Ariel the griffin GMH)
I mean I get part of it but my personality is ‘Im on another planet you can’t get me!”
My father does the same thing he’s just not as blatant as I am. I don’t think he knows he does that shit.
Yes I’m a hypocrite I’m human. We’re all hypothetical.
un_pogaz
*_neurone activation_*
“We’re all hypocrites, doing the same thing to each other.”
– Verso
Spinland
Very much relatable in my current family situation. Guilt mixed with, “but I just can’t deal with you right now.” I don’t think Idrisah’s relationship with her parents is as fraught as mine, but I can still relate to the feels.
Vinemaple
Oh, yes… Reading the kind of things Idrisah’s mother is saying, it makes me sick to my stomach. We don’t know yet if she means them the way I’m automatically taking them, but, even so…
All this time I just thought it was difficult for her because of the languages, but this… I think Idrisah is gonna be the one who needs her friends’ support and encouragement, in a page or two.
Marcie
Unfortunately relatable.