Emma Nachtigall = I’m A Nightingale!

Thanks Mom!

Image: A photo of a lion crouched defensively in front of her very young cubs, mouth open in a ferocious snarl. The cubs are labeled “autistic youth” and “autistic kids” and the lion is labeled “me.” 

I mostly post on my twitter these days, and I’ve been enjoying making memes like this one.

amen

I would rather let a “special snowflake” into the autistic community than exclude an autistic that needs support and cannot get a clinical diagnosis. I would rather validate ten “special snowflakes” than invalidate one autistic who needs support and cannot get a clinical diagnosis.

I would rather welcome a hundred “special snowflakes” without question than force an autistic to disclose their entire life to me just to get the support they need when they cannot get a clinical diagnosis.

I would rather help those that don’t need help, than deny help to those that need it.

Yes it is!

the sky was so beautiful. ig: lega.cy

(please don’t delete caption !!)

beautiful smile

RIP Stephen Hawking 🌌

heartbreaker

real intimacy

I love when you become so close with someone that you can see parts of each other in one another and you begin to say the same things and steal lines from one another and have a similar sense of humor and can exchange an inside joke with just a glance you don’t even have to talk because you have such a strong connection with them and you can sit in comfortable silence but also talk for hours it’s really hard to find that kind of compatibility

I want to be the girl sitting in that chair

I’m a butterfly in those flowers

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEHqXpqu7m_/

Love this drawing, especially the expression on the face

Hi what are raptor hands? I see people talk about this in #actuallyautistic, and I'm not 100% what kind of hands it refers to. (I love your detailed and thorough answers to everything, btw.)

Hi, I’m glad you appreciate how many words I need to answer even the most basic questions! (half joke)

Interestingly enough, my icon here is a drawing of myself with raptor hands. 

Raptor hands (also called raptor arms, meerkat hands, and many other things of this format) are a way of holding one’s hands/arms at rest. It’s when a person has their arms in a resting position where their elbows are bent. 

A common way that this can look is that the hands are right at chest level, and loosely hanging down. The hands don’t need to be as high though for me to still consider it raptor hands. Elbows at a right angle such that the hands are hanging down from around the waist still strike me as being a bit raptorish in this sense.

The reason this is talked about in the actuallyautistic tag is because autistic people tend to be the ones who do this naturally. I’m not sure what causes it, but a lot of us find it much more comfortable than having our arms hang down to our sides. I have a friend who tries to hold her arms down to her sides, but because having them bent is so much more natural feeling, her elbows are still a bit bent, and so when she walks you can see her arms bending away from her a bit. It’s actually how I first thought to ask if she’s autistic too (she is). 

Here’s the original drawing I did that I turned into my icon, since I think it’s a good example. (Copic markers and a pigma micron for the line art)