So I, along with many other people, get migraines, and also have weird light sensitivity where certain things are uncomfortable or impossible to look at for long. I can’t read blue LEDs for example, and can barely read blue text at all, nor can I view white text on a black background for more than about 10 seconds before a migraine/nausea/dizziness kicks in. It’s a pretty common problem for migraine sufferers and people with photosensitivity. When you complain about it people tend to think you’re just being fussy about how you want something to appear, but it’s actually super unpleasant and has nothing to do with visual taste.
This happened when I was about nine or so. My aunt lived out of town, in the middle of the countryside. Her house was like, it was a semi-detached house but there were only those two houses there. A road went between the middle of the two houses (they were adjoined on the upper floors) leading onto an avenue of really dense trees. The road leading to her house passed under this big black railway bridge, and even now, twenty years later, whenever I go past that turning, I’m reminded of this story.
Hello. I’m Ashton Raze. I’ve always loved the concept of interactive fiction. Text adventures. Fighting Fantasy. Those little plastic letters you stick on fridges. I first dabbled with writing my own interactive fiction two days ago, and ever since then I’ve been on a tireless crusade to promote the form, conducting seminars all over the world.
So here it is, my debut Twine game. It’s called Simmons. It’s a horror story. It’ll take you about 5-10 minutes to play through, and I would like it very much if you did.
You know what else? You should make your own Twine game. It’s very easy to get started. I used this excellent guide by Anna Anthropy, and I suggest you do the same.
Oil slicks the tarmac, there’s a faint smell of burnt tyres and burning hair. Illuminated by the flickering headlights, dust motes from the skid dance lazily on the still night air. It is late September, 2012. This road leads to, or from, Albuquerque. Of course, you know this, it’s where you were headed. This desert road, the moths already descending, a lonely road. You haven’t seen another driver for hours. No cell reception. No signs of life beyond the insects that flutter and buzz.
Trigger warning: ableism, suicide
So here’s a story about alternative medicine. It’s not really about homeopathy specifically despite what I said on Twitter but who cares.
Quite a few years ago now, before I had my first instance of spinal reconstructive surgery, I’d been told the surgery wasn’t possible for me. For reasons this turned out to be not right, but at this point I was under the impression I was stuck with a spine that was getting worse, growing increasingly more painful etc. Fairly obviously, with spinal curvature, it also gave me tension headaches.
