I’m Never Quite Sure How To Conduct Myself

Lovely!

Beware of the hare that starts and stares in the glowing gloom of the moon!

Earth Visitor

I read somewhere that many people on the autistic spectrum feel like aliens looking in on human society from the outside. It certainly is how I feel. I don’t believe it’s actually true, but I find it helpful to play with this idea and develop my story. 

I found a planet called Kepler 452b, which is one of the many planets astronomers have identified as conducive to some form of life. I like the name, because Johannes Kepler was a super cool guy, so I decided that’s where I’;; be from. And I’ve decided that I’ve been sent here to Earth on a mission. 

Mainly my mission is to observe and try to understand what’s going on here in human society and its relationship to the rest of the amazingly lush and diverse life forms. If possible, Mission Control authorizes me to communicate some messages that may help to redirect the destructive behavior of humans.

The idea that I have my own mission from my home planet is very helpful. By the standards of the neurotypical, heteronormative, capitalist human world, I will always be labelled a failure. “Fine by me,” I try to tell myself. “We have a very different set of standards on Kepler 452b. By our standards, most of you people are failures! So there! Take that, Earthlings!” 

In this blog, I’m going to continue the story like this--communicating with others on the spectrum, doing what I can to cultivate autistic culture, and recording my observations as I compile my report before I return to my home planet. 

Time is short. I must complete my assignment to the best of my ability.  

heartbreaker

An Exo-What...?

Simply put, an exoplanet is a planet that orbits another star. That said, just because a planet orbits a star (like Earth) does not mean that it is automatically stable for life. The planet must be within the habitable zone, which is the area around a star in which water has the potential to be liquid…aka not so close that all the water would evaporate, and not too far away where all the water would freeze.

Recently, with the help of our Kepler spacecraft, scientists have discovered the most Earth-like exoplanet ever, Kepler-452b. Pretty cool! This chart shows 12 other exoplanet discoveries that are less than twice the size of Earth, and live in the habitable zone of their host star. Kepler-452b is special because all previous findings have orbited stars that are smaller and cooler than Earth’s.

You may be thinking, “Okay, so what? There’s an Earth-like planet that spins around a similar sized sun.” Well, Kepler-452b orbits its sun at nearly the same distance from its star as Earth does from our sun, which means that conditions on the plant could be similar to those here on Earth!

We can already guess your next question…”When are we going to Kepler-452b?!” Well, this planet is located in the constellation Cygnus which is 1,400 light-years away, so not anytime soon. However, our Kepler spacecraft continues to search for Earth-like exoplanets and gather important scientific information about them.

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)

playing with charcoal pencils in candlelight

Fact

Yes it is!

the sky was so beautiful. ig: lega.cy

(please don’t delete caption !!)