• Blog,  Blogging,  Chronic Illness & Neurological Disorders,  Fiction,  Interactive Fiction

    Bloom; a Game About Surviving

    August 26, 2015 /

    When you have a chronic illness, it starts to become the core of your being. It becomes hard to not let your illness define you, to actually live a life. It also becomes hard to explain your experiences to your healthy friends and family and I’m somewhat glad that I have friends with similar experiences for support (though I am not thankful they also have to live with these struggles.)

    I’m not sure when  I first heard about the interactive narrative tool, Twine, but from the start I had a feeling that, as someone who wants to get into game narrative, it was the kind of thing I’d want to experiment with. My first idea was based around chronic illness, and trying to illustrate what life is when you have one.

    And so, I created Bloom.

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  • Blog,  Blogging,  Star Wars

    The Future of Women in Star Wars

    August 22, 2015 /

    If there’s one thing I love unabashedly above all else, it’s women in my sci-fi—specifically, women in Star Wars. My utter adoration of Rey Last-Name-Unknown is no secret, even though I know essentially nothing about her. She, like Captain Phasma, (or Padme, or Leia,) ticks every box: she’s a girl, she’s in Star Wars. Hey, I’m easy. Sometimes all some people want is a scrawny dude in black. Different strokes, folks.

    This week has been Women of Star Wars appreciation week on Tumblr, which means that there’s even more positivity about the ladies on that blue site than usual. I don’t do gifs anymore, nor do I even spend much time on that timesink of a hellhole once I discovered the joys of productivity after escaping; that doesn’t mean I don’t want to participate somehow.

    One of the prompts (the first one, which leaves me anything but prompt) is Don’t Look Back, which is a great one since I’d love to look forward to the women who will soon be gracing our screens, pages, and shelves in the years to come. The women of The Force Awakens, the woman of Rogue One (an apt name, considering there is only one woman so far), the ladies in the upcoming books Aftermath and Lost Stars, and even the ladies of the comics. Why not appreciate the women who will soon be leading our stories?

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  • Blog,  International,  Photography,  Travel Photography

    Disneyland: the Details

    July 28, 2015 /

    Going from Star Wars Celebration to Disneyland was going from my happiest place on Earth to the happiest place on Earth. Stepping into Disneyland is like stepping into another world, filled with rocket ships and cute little stores whose opening hours are never.

    I also found my true love there: soft pretzels. Oh America, why do you make such strange, yet delicious food?

    Sporting my new Sigma lens,  my usual nifty fifty was thrown unceremoniously into my bag (“I don’t need you anymore, I’ve found someone better!”) Soon enough I found myself swapping them back around; turns out I’m still a sucker for prime lenses.

    I absolutely adored Star Tours and Space Mountain, much to no one’s surprise. Sometimes when I drift off on the bus I think of going back and riding Star Tours a million more times. One day I’ll get all the combinations, guys. One day.

    News update: I got a Patreon! If you like what I write/photograph at all, consider helping me out over there. There’s so much more I want to do, but money can be the biggest cockblock of all time.

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  • Blog,  Film photography,  Photography

    Pentax: July ’15

    July 8, 2015 /

    I recently unearthed my mum’s old Pentax K1000 with some help from my sister, and since I had some spare film laying around I decided to test it out.

    We couldn’t get the battery slot open, so I had no light meter, and I wasn’t 100% sure I’d loaded the film properly (it’s been a while), and then I almost screwed up rewinding the film—on top of the film counter being broken. This was a lot of experimentation, and I was totally expecting to have a roll of basically nothing.

    Most of this is from Thames and the Coromandel; a friend and I went for a walk up to the Waiomu kauri grove one morning while down visiting my family. There’s one tree there that’s absolutely massive, must be a few centuries old. We also just wandered around the town a little on the market day (I was trying to find the source of the sausage sizzle scent).

    As for my normal DSLR baby, I’m going to be uploading photos from a cosplay shoot from a couple months ago (oops) with a cosplayer I adore later this week!

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  • Blog,  Events,  International,  Star Wars

    SWCA: Saf Errant

    May 19, 2015 /

    It was a month ago that I finally stepped foot onto the plane that would bring me, for the first time in over 15 years, to America. I meant to sleep the flight away–I really did–but instead I absentmindedly drank a glass of wine offered to me before remembering my sleeping pills had a “no alcohol” rule. So for around 30 hours, I did not sleep. Oops!

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    At least there was free food.

    Why was I going to America? Well, for Star Wars Celebration, the massive convention for Star Wars fans all over the globe to converge and nerd out together. As if anyone needed more proof of how much I love the franchise, this was it. From the 15th to the 19th of April, I was to be surrounded by Star Wars.

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