The paradox of avoidant anxiety is that the more you care about getting it done, the harder it is to do.
Transcript
Idrisah: I studied avian xenolingiustics in college… and I’m fluent in Tiiliitian! A bitonal language I can’t speak without a keyboard!
Inset panel: The silhouette of an avian with their respiratory track in white is shown saying "Tiiliitwau" using their syrinx. Idrisah is shown using a recording keyboard to layer the tones of her natural speech to produce the same word.
Idrisah: But studying Arabic and Urdu makes me feel so… fake? Like an outsider to my own family.
Inset panel: Idrisah stares at a book looking anxious as basic Arabic phrases for tourists float in the background: "How much is this?" "Do you have any recommendations?" "Where is the airport?" "Do you speak English?"
Idrisah: And I already stand out way too much in my family… I’m the 183 cm tall agnostic lesbian from Jupiter.
Idrisah rests her cheek against her fist and rolls her eyes.
Panel background: Little cartoon spaceships float by in front of Jupiter, including Idrisah in a spacesuit with alien antennae. She says a speech bubble full of cosmic gibberish.
Talita: Does it make reunions stressful?
Idrisah: They’re mostly lovely– I like the in-person stuff! But I didn’t go to the last one. So mom and dad have really been putting the pressure on when I call…
20 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 156”
AnormalADN
There’s a typo in the first panel at “xenolinguistics”
AnormalADN
There’s a typo in the first panel at “xenolinguistics”
Trees
Is that some kind of lung or air sack in the avian’s crest? Does that mean brights can produce different sounds than duns if they have a whole extra… er… head… space?
Sid
From the Avian Physiology section, for your and other readers convenience!
“The crest of bright avians is mostly hollow but contains a long loop that they can use to make a loud honking sound. The intensity of this honk varies between species and tends to correlate with how intensely avian brights compete with each other and “display” while seeking the attention of duns. Flightless avians have by far the loudest display honk, and polar avians and divers have the quietest.”
TotallySomebody
From the Avian Biology page: “The crest of bright avians is mostly hollow but contains a long loop that they can use to make a loud honking sound. The intensity of this honk varies between species and tends to correlate with how intensely avian brights compete with each other and “display” while seeking the attention of duns.”
Lilac
I understand completely, that awkward disconnect from like all your extended family and the pressure from your main family for bring normal around them. I remember when I graduated from high school my family had a big party with a bunch of family members and I was just so uncomfortable and miserable the entire time, I felt awful. Because I didn’t really *know* any of these people and I felt pressured to try act “normal”, which i can’t really do. And it felt like I was being ‘shown off’ the entire time if that makes sense. So though idrisah’s circumstances are a bit different, I still understand and relate so much.
It’s all a tough thing to deal with and it makes total sense that it would still continue to exist in this crazy future universe, just in some different ways.
Idk what to say fhdhfhs just like. Yeah….. I Get It…………
Lilac
*BEING not bring i think I could have worded that better but I hope my ideas still come across lol
0xabad1dea
honestly “bringing normal” sounds like something the kids should be saying. “Yeah my mom told me to bring normal to dinner with grandma tonight…”
Egg
Man, this is one of the reasons I’m scared of forgetting how to speak Arabic, I dont think I could ever relearn it.
Also, something I have to ask, from where is the name Idrisah derived? I at first wondered if it was an Arabic name, so I asked some family if they were familiar with it, but then no one recognised it, though my mom said that it sounds like the name Idris, and apparently according to Google Idrisiah (just one letter difference) is maybe an urdu name? I dunno I’ve just been curious as to the name’s orgin
Jay Eaton
It’s a mutation of Idris. For characters in RttS I usually try to give them either unusual modern names or a mutation of a modern name, to reflect that it’s 300 years in “the future.”
Egg
Ah OK I suspected that, since gillie sounded like a mutation of the name millie but I wasn’t quite sure (didn’t want to assume that just because I never heard of it before that it wasn’t a real name)
But that’s cool! Really adds to the setting
Eldermage1
You know Idrisah, if you were to perhaps join a legally dubious AI in their journey across the cosmos, you’d be able to make the family meet and greets more regularly…
Mr. Skeleton
Oh to be an avian flying around in a little beep beep spaceship.
Teod
The lil avian in a UFO is so unbearably cute.
Trees
That could just be what avian ships really look like.
All other sapient species: Hard sci-fi, Expanse-ass, drive-cone having, external fuel tank, reaction control thruster bedecked flying gantries.
Avians: cartoon UFO.
Here’s hoping!
Paroxysmall
https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/163809492663/sketches-of-various-types-of-ships-and-space
this is from 2017 but it’s various ships and space stations between the sophonts
JoB
> Avians: cartoon UFO.
·
“… why does your UFO have twelve landing struts??”
“Huh? That’s my set of golf clubs …”
Zidane
idrisah’s situation feels embarrassingly relatable, good reminder for to pick up learning my family’s language again LOL. on another note (ha), the avian diagram is really neat, is the symbol in the background of the panel the one that represents the Tiiliit?
DasGanon
I was going to say “maybe?” but I just checked on the Avian lore pages, and it looks like a more complex version of the one on the Avian Planet page. I wonder what a Tiiliit banner looks like, surely they have flags. (No flag no country)
That also said it looks like the Avian Culture page got a huge rework! It’s gorgeous and amazing now.
Jay Eaton
Avians use national symbols, not flags. Flags are a human thing. The symbol may be put on a banner but the color and shape of the banner are not subject to strict vexillological rules. It’s like a logo.