Things I Care About #1 from atjscreams
You can read March's newsletter here
April 1, 2025
*about the date1
how're feeling about the title, team? i'm thinking that's just what i'm going to call it because honey, i just do not have it in me for titles.
the last few months years life etc. has been kicking my butt and i'm just glad that it has let me breathe for the past day or so. the application rejections are disheartening and ya boi is tired but still we ball. i hope y'all and your loves are safe.
1. It's AWESOME Being Cripplepunk!
My friend, Evel, and I did this talk at the 2024 Game Devs of Color conference and I'm very proud of the work we've done! You can check out the links for resources we shared in the video (as well as more that we keep collecting, it's a breathing resource!) here. Big shoutout to Evel and the Game Dev of Color crew for this being the cover picture, I love it so much! You can find more pictures like this at Disabled and Here.
You can support Evel here. You can support me here.
We're also hosting GlitchFX Jam that starts this Friday, April 4th! You can share the Bluesky post or the Mastodon post.
2. National Poetry Writing Month
April 1st starts National Poetry Month/National Poetry Writing Month and Dr. Taylor Byas and séamus isaac fey made this great calendar! I haven't written poems in forever so we're gonna get back in there and see what's up.
image description: Calendar titled NAPOMO Form Calendar with Taylor and Seamus 2025! Each day has a type of poem in it, some with links. In order they go: limerick, prose poem, sonnet, free verse friday, cradle-magnolia, ekphrastic, duplex, ode, tanka, golden shovel, free verse friday, sestina, ghazal, poem made of questions, villanelle, bop, epistolary, free verse friday, triptych, poem of end stopped lines, burning haibun/haibun, choka, couplets, cento, free verse friday, pantoum, erasure, ballad, haiku, and american sonnet. At the bottom there is text that reads: For more information on any of the listed forms you can download the PDF version of this calendar with clickable link, which can be found in taylor or seamus's bios!
The Google Drive picture is downloadable and you can click on the days to go to links that explain the types of poems!
3. National Poetry Month
Poetry is my first love and I'm trying to return to her (gay), so I'm going through my books I have and books on hold at the library to see what I can do. I'm reading Victoria Chang's, With My Back To The World right now and I love reminders that I've made the right decisions here. Some titles I hope to get to are:
- Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics gifted to me by one of the editors, T.C. Tolbert and edited by Trace Peterson
- We Want It All: An Anthology of Trans Poetics edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel
- Halal If You Hear Me: The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3 edited by Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo (psst poetry books at Haymarket Books are 40% off all poetry month!)
- Kith Books had all ebooks free and guess who's gonna be in there
I had made a list of poets I want to return to, but I'm gonna just keep that til the end of the month and see how that shapes out. If you want a super outdated list of poets I've loved you can look at a post that cost a good chunk of my sanity back in the late 10's here.
4. How To Be Disabled In A Pandemic
I made tough decisions/had tough conversations over the past month due to my choice to physically mask. One person made it so that the conversation left me feeling indescribably loved, and realizing that I have not felt that especially as I take care of my health, has made me try to get back into disability justice more intentionally. I've started this and have been tuning more into online Covid Cautious communities and it's helping.
5. Keeping In Touch
I made this little table where I can start reaching out to people across all the social media spaces and keep better contact with them. A lot of places, I've dropped the link for where I want them to follow me and I think that just doesn't work. There are people who I miss in my feeds and DMs and I don't think that I've told them that they're missed. I don't really know how it's going to work or if it's going to work at all, but it's nice having a little project like this that lets me do something instead of ruminate over losses that may not need to remain lost.
Odds & Ends
I came across a lot of links during Trans Day of Visibility that I want to share which is why this post is happening now. I Saw The TV Glow (y'all know I'm linking the Girl That's Scary review which I adore) is my reward for finishing and publishing this so that's why we're a movin and please excuse the brevity and all that.
- Buried Without Ceremony is having a PDFs bundle sale
- Checkpoint Gaming made a list of NINETY PLUS TRANS GAMES
- Cripping Breath is a programme looking at how ventilatory machines have saved people with respiratory issues. I'm a little sad that I don't see black/brown people here (as far as I can tell) but I'm looking forward to following the work.
- Crips For eSims Gaza itch page has resources for Palestine and keep an eye out for their bundle coming soon!
- Foldscopes is to make science more accessible. I don't even know what I'd use that for but I need to do this immediately
- Game Poems is looking for work for their first issue!
- Nathalie Lawhead has written # Why making art matters: We no longer have a type of industry where we can chase financial success. We can only sustainably fail., which honestly I haven't read yet but wanna share anyways!
- Queer Zine Fest is looking for volunteers for their festival this fall
- Radiant G created a Bluesky starter pack of Trans Game Developers!
- Teddie Bernard made a comic about Trans Visibility and Rage
- TTRPGs for Trans Rights Ohio bundle for the next month
Destroy the systems that seek to destroy you!
Wellness For Geeks Who Sit by Geek Girl Strong
Wellness For Geeks Who Sit by Geek Girl Strong was one of my absolute favorite videos at Game Devs of Color 2024! I'm someone who, actually really love(s)(d) sports and exercise before the pandemic and I was worried that would just....end because of the whole breathing business. But this made me excited to try to be in my body and learn a new way to keep it moving and able to work and stuff within its limits. Highly highly recommend!
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i'm lying about the date because i need this to count towards my April goals but these are mostly Trans Visibility of Day focused, it's fine. i can be normal about simple things. ↩