As you can probably imagine from my sparse updates here lately, I've been incredibly busy. Besides working as an archivist as my day job, the Autistic Gaming Initiative is fully underway now - we've done two streams to date, and our third one is coming up on July 29th and July 30th:
We'll be streaming from 9 pm on the 29th until 9 pm on the 30th for 24 straight hours of gaming! Keep an eye on our Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook to get the list of streamers participating this time around and their schedules. We update them pretty regularly, so it's a good way to keep up with what we're doing! It's also worth checking the "who are we?" page on our website so you can look at the individual streamers and get to know them a little bit.
TooManyGames 2017, aka The Best Two Days Of My Gaming Life
If you follow me on Tumblr or Twitter, you're probably aware that I enjoy the video game streaming team Vinesauce - it was their charity streams that inspired me to start AGI in the first place, as I detailed here in an earlier post. I decided that my big goal for the next few months after starting AGI was to go to TooManyGames, a gaming convention just outside of Philadelphia, and tell them in person that they motivated me to do something bigger than myself and help other people, and I'm pleased to say that I actually managed to do that!
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| My program for TooManyGames, signed by every Vinesauce streamer present. |
I'm not entirely sure I can put how I felt in the moment into words because I was so excited and nervous to do this, but I do know that after finishing I sort of forgot how to string together coherent sentences for a few minutes, which my friends who were with me can attest to. Everyone was incredibly kind and approachable and I was in utter awe of all of them anyway because they're the people I've been watching to learn how to stream and they inspired me to start AGI and help people. I came away loving them even more than I already did going in, which was a lot, and I'm still over the moon about it all weeks later. I frequently go back to my con photos to remind myself that it really happened and that I wasn't dreaming it all up because it was just a really, really great two days. I'm definitely going back for all three days next year, and I'm going to see if some of my fellow streamers will be able to join me this time around!
Really, I just get this big, doofy grin on my face every time I think about it all and how great it was. I kind of look like this, actually:
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| Image: Steph, the author, with an excessively doofy grin as she poses for a photo with Vinesauce founder Vinny. |
So basically, TooManyGames was really, really good, and I'm so happy about it.
Other Updates
If you're in the greater NYC area and you're looking for me, you might find me at Felicity House on days I'm not working and they've got an event going on. Felicity House is a safe place for women on the autism spectrum to hang out, congregate, socialize, and network, and I've recently become involved with them and their work. Definitely check them out if you're down in the Flatiron District!
As mentioned above, the next Autistic Gaming Initiative stream is going to be on Saturday, July 29th, starting at 9 pm and continuing until 9 pm on Sunday, July 30th. AGI streams for autistic-run charities, namely The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and Autism Women's Network, so if you're interested in helping us out in any way or even joining in, contact us at autisticgaminginitiative@gmail.com or on one of our social media accounts listed earlier in this post!
Lastly, I'll try to be around here more often again - things have just been pretty busy in my neck of the woods! Thank you all for reading and for your support of this blog, which is going to turn seven years old in October! I greatly appreciate each and every one of you!
