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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D.

@wytang.bsky.social
456 followers 772 following 762 posts

Communications Ph.D. academic precariat - Media Psychology - Videogames & Sexism i just can't anymore

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Reposted by Wai Yen Tang Ph.D.
Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
“Woke” is not just racial code, but indeed gendered: Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, etc emphasized a politics of empathy and care for the victims of America’s white patriarchal systems. Empathy is radical and threatening to such systems. Hence the attacks on books, journalism, and education.
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Chokely Carmichael🥋 @stewartcoles.bsky.social · 6h
“The U.S. Department of Defense funded the production and distribution of a strategy video game during its occupation of Iraq...There was never any attribution of the real video game maker, allegedly to enhance its credibility among its Iraqi users.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Reposted by Wai Yen Tang Ph.D.
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Do yourself a favor. Read these 7 pages by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social right now. It is the most concise explanation of the current situation in U.S. politics I've seen and it captures why calls to reduce "polarization" can ultimately worsen the problem 🧵 www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/pol...
journalofdemocracy.org
Polarization Is Not the Problem | Journal of Democracy
Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress.
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 6h
Bad news for (young) gamers: Using gaming platforms as news sources is more intimately associated with radical belief dispositions than other online spaces by Simon Greipl @uschwertberger.bsky.social @dianarieger.bsky.social @briginad.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I am in reason #1 and have been for years. The competition for opportunities is so taxing on my physical and mental well-being
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SMBC Comics @smbccomics.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
That janitor just goes from building to building helping people. COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/equati... PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com
10-panel SMBC comic update. All the panels are dialogue-less. Two researchers are writing equations on a chalkboard. A janitor watches them from afar. The researchers leave as the janitor is still mopping the floor. The janitor walks up to the chalkboard and writes on it with purpose, admires what he wrote, and leave late in the evening. The two researchers return at dawn, and are shocked by what is written on the blackboard. Over their half-erased equations, the text "ChatGPT, do a breakthru, no mistakes, thankx."
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Catchy @catchy122.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Writing like this is why I subscribe to mothership. I was introduced to something entirely new in a way that felt inclusive of me. AND IT’S COOL! www.mothership.blog/gunpla-is-fo...
mothership.blog
Gunpla is for the girls
Real Gundams wear pink... and sparkles, and hearts, and tutus, and rhinestones
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Gen Wojcik @genandgenes.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Someone said to me that there are frats everywhere, so why do I seem to have more ire for spaces like Cornell? Money & power. About 1/10 Cornell students have families in the top 1% of income. The institutions are by them, for them. This takes every other dynamic and amplifies it times over.
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gamevironments @gamevironments.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🎮 What happens when video games move beyond entertainment and into therapy? A new article by Deanna Holroyd, PhD and Holly Parker, PhD, explores #VideoGames as therapeutic tools for neurodivergent #Children and #Teenagers. 📲 Read: journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/ga... #GameStudies #Research
journals.suub.uni-bremen.de
Video Games as Neoliberal Therapeutic Techno-Solutions: The Transformative Power of Digital Ludic Wellness Services for Neurodivergence | gamevironments
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Failbetter Games | Wishlist Mandrake on Steam! @failbettergames.com · 30/09/2026
We're hiring! We're looking for a Writer and Narrative Designer to join the Fallen London team at a senior or mid level. This position is permanent, remote, and full time, which for us means 35 hours a week. #GamesJobs
Night. The House of Chimes - a tower which you might immediately think of as Big Ben - is adrift in the River Thames. It still seems to be keeping time. In the background, a large, alien building looms over the city of London.
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Keza MacDonald @mackeza.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Apropos of nothing, here's the callout I wrote for Eurogamer about the glaring lack of female voices in the games media. I wrote this in *2018*. Things did seem to get better for a while but now we're backsliding again and the reasons for it haven't changed. www.eurogamer.net/why-the-game...
eurogamer.net
Why the games media has a diversity problem - this website especially
Eurogamer has far too low a proportion of articles by female writers. Keza MacDonald, the Guardian's games editor, explains why this happens and what can be don
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Playing by new rules: young women gamers construction of community in online gaming spaces by Amanda Marpaung, Matthew J. Phillips & Ashleigh Pantaleo doi.org/10.1080/2331...
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The main reason you haven’t heard about campus sexual violence in a few years is because Trump and SCOTUS have made it much, much harder for survivors to come forward. You might vaguely remember that Title IX was a big battleground in his first term. And that we lost.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 28/09/2026
Two things worth considering dude by side, with AI in research:
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GLAAD @glaad.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Extensively citing GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Index, a new Amnesty International report — ‘It Erodes My Soul’: Meta’s Contribution to Anti-LGBTI Discourse in Hungary — shows how Meta failed to address harmful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on Facebook in Hungary by ineffectively applying its own policies.
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Felix Dietrich @felix-dietrich.de · 28/09/2026
🎶 New paper in Communication Research! Ever listened to a song and suddenly you’re back at that summer, that road trip, that concert with friends? We examined biographic resonance, when music connects with our memories. 📄 The paper: doi.org/10.1177/0093... 💛 Open Access: osf.io/preprints/ps...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 27/09/2026
I love this paper so much. If I had my way every single journalist, pundit, analyst, and politician in the US would read it & then read it again. I want to quote all of it. www.frontiersin.org/journals/soc...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | The problem with polarization research in an age of extremism
"I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block i...
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.
Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?
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Mothership @mothership.blog · 25/09/2026
Like this week's Dear Mother letter-writer, @midimyers.com feels things deeply, including emotional connections to fictional characters. Maybe, she posits, that level of empathy is a gift.
mothership.blog
How do you get over your attachment to characters when a game ends?
"The game coming to an end almost feels like grief. There is an emptiness and sense of loss that I don't know how to fill..."
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Hannes Cools @hannescools.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The academic grant system is extremely broken. 21.627 submissions... That is how many proposals the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships received this month. Two years ago it was 10,360. The budget did not move. The success rate went from around 16% to something close to 7%.
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Mikhail Klimentov @leadergrev.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
For nearly two years, I've been investigating a pattern of ominous legal letters sent to journalists by defamation counsel representing Bobby Kotick. That investigation is finally live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwp...
youtube.com
Inside Bobby Kotick's Campaign Against the Press
YouTube video by People Make Games
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Shayna MoooOOOooon (she/they) @themoonis.gay · 24/09/2026
Her name was Kerri Moynihan www.latimes.com/california/s...
latimes.com
Parents' suit alleges sexual harassment at Activision drove their daughter to suicide
Lawsuit filed by parents of employee who took her life at company retreat alleges Activision Blizzard failed to prevent pervasive sexual harassment.
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The only group that people won't help are politicians.
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Mathijs Pont | Art @mathijspont.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
My wife just signed her first publishing deal since starting her own cozy game publisher called "Otter Worlds". I'm so proud of her! <3 The game is a relaxed Dutch-themed sandbox city builder. Feel free to check it out here: store.steampowered.com/app/3417550/... #gamedev #games #indiedev #cozy
store.steampowered.com
POLDERS on Steam
POLDERS is a relaxing Dutch-themed sandbox city builder where you take back land from the sea. Reclaim the seabed and create a crooked, bustling town in a world shaped by water.
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Reposted by Wai Yen Tang Ph.D.
Jamie Madigan @jamiemadigan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Loot boxes! 490 loot box openings across 13 livestreams: 93% happened in multi-opening streaks, not one-offs. Monetization cues (offers, currency displays) drove opening streaks more than rare rewards did. Streamers talking about restraint didn't actually stop them. doi.org/10.3389/fpub...
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Jamie Madigan @jamiemadigan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A rare RCT actual experiment of TTRPG players appears! 3 weekly D&D-style sessions boosted meaning in life and cut existential anxiety (N=23). ...But so did a plain reflection-discussion control group, with no significant difference between them. doi.org/10.1007/s442...
Article abstract
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CHI PLAY 2026 @chiplay.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
🎮 The full CHI PLAY 2026 program is LIVE! You can now: 📅 Build your own schedule 🔎 Browse sessions, presentations & events ♿ Check the accessibility FAQs 👉 Explore the full program: programs.sigchi.org/chiplay/2026 📅 Nov 2–5, 2026 • York, UK #CHIPLAY #CHIPLAY2026 #SIGCHI
The text reads, "Full program is out now! Explore the program on acm.chiplay.com"
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Brandon O’Brien @therisingtithes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
every few months we need to be reminded that these platforms inherently incentivise other people finding ways to make you angry for money, and that you should be even more wary not just when they're trying to disinform you but, as this video argues, when they don't even care about what angers you.
youtu.be
How to rage bait Americans
YouTube video by Christophe
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Dexerto @dexerto.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Some players fear the huge guild will lead to "mass harassment" of others:
dexerto.com
Asmongold responds as WoW Forever players want him banned over massive Olympus guild - Dexerto
Asmongold has responded to WoW Forever players who have been calling for him to be banned after getting a massive number of players in his Olympus guild.
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Mothership @mothership.blog · 22/09/2026
We heard you'd love to get into TTRPGs. @catbussell.bsky.social is all about lowering the barrier to entry and helping you start your first adventure www.mothership.blog/how-to-get-i...
mothership.blog
How to get into tabletop role-playing without inducing a stress headache
Getting into tabletop RPGs is a daunting, intimidating affair; veteran GM Cat Bussell tells you how to get past the gatekeeping, and make the medium your own.
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Jamie Madigan @jamiemadigan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Meta-analysis of 133 studies, 14,245 participants: gaming shows a small overall cognitive benefit vs. controls, mostly in memory, plus edges in spatial ability, visual attention, and cognitive control. Genre and demographics didn't change the picture much. doi.org/10.1016/j.ac...
Abstract screenshot
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Neuroskeptic @neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A study on "The Prevalence of Aggressive Content in Online Sexually Explicit Fanfiction" pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42768283/ Spoiler warning... the prevalence is high.
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Fan Studies Network @fanstudies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
New article ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Frey, M., Declercq, D. & Reyes Pascual, G., (2026) “Industry Myths Meet Folk Theories: How White Avid Film Audiences Speak about Diverse Film Casting”, Media Industries 13(1). doi: doi.org/10.3998/mij....
doi.org
Industry Myths Meet Folk Theories: How White Avid Film Audiences Speak about Diverse Film Casting
Research demonstrates how false film industry beliefs about the supposed commercial unviability of racially diverse actors have hindered racial casting equality. This article, based on thematic discou...
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Fan Studies Network @fanstudies.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New article ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Paquin, V., Plante, C. N., Reysen, S., Roberts, S. E., & Gerbasi, K. C. (2026). Examining self-determination theory in media fandom: a cross-sectional study. Leisure/Loisir, 1–10. #FanStudies doi.org/10.1080/1492...
doi.org
Examining self-determination theory in media fandom: a cross-sectional study
Consistent with self-determination theory, research suggests that fandom participation may satisfy basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. However, the generalizability...
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Fan Studies Network @fanstudies.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New article ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Palacio, D. (2026). Heroes in Disguise: LGBTQIA+ Identity and Relationship Building via Fandom and Cosplay. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 1–19. #FanStudies doi.org/10.1080/1540...
doi.org
Heroes in Disguise: LGBTQIA+ Identity and Relationship Building via Fandom and Cosplay
LGBTQIA+ individuals face discrimination and minority stress, causing social isolation, which can negatively affect mental health, identity development, and relationships. Creative arts therapists ...
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alyssa mercante @alyssamerc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A new story from me that's VERY close to my heart: women athletes are leaning into the creator economy to boost fandom of themselves, their team, and their sport. I got to speak to Michelle Alozie AND Sarah Nurse for this, so I got to fangirl, too! Check it out: digiday.com/media/how-wo...
digiday.com
How women athletes are betting on the creator playbook
Women athletes are increasingly leaning on content creation to build their brand, grow their sports' fandom, and help close salary gaps.
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@bobhudson.bsky.social @bobhudson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
We seem to be moving inexorably towards the unthinkable - the total closure of a university… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
University of Brighton considers closing Falmer campus by 2030
The campus houses the university's library, sports and health complex, and two halls of residence.
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Samuel Heine @sadmediahistorian.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Patriarchy is resilient especially since it is favored by the more general system. It also shows that most industries will only perform a semblance of repairing the problems and only if there are legal actions or public pressure.
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Leon Xiao @leonxiao.com · 14/09/2026
Three loot box news items from September 2026. 1️⃣🇱🇹: Lithuania proposes to prohibit games with loot boxes from being directly offered to under-18s.
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I have no idea what I'm doing with my life
static.klipy.com
Man Experiencing Panic Attack
ALT: Man Experiencing Panic Attack
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Dr. Rachel Kowert @drkowert.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The DLC Leadership Program is the first evidence-based certification for the people who hold digital communities together and the people whose decisions shape it. Developed for gaming communities. Applicable far beyond them. FREE TO TAKE. Join the waitlist. www.dpcleadership.org
dpcleadership.org
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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 13/09/2026
Article now retracted. Retraction notice focuses on data sharing, but doesn't mention - the ethics review body is the author's own company - the tech used to to collect the data by intercepting users' LLM prompts does not exist ht @grinschglsandra.bsky.social psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Modern academic structures are constraining scientific creativity A new paper says research is structured around short funding cycles, productivity-based evaluation criteria, and risk-averse frameworks that favor predictable and non-transformative research outputs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
How many times can you bear to hear "we found someone who fits better" in your professional lifetime?
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Wai Yen Tang Ph.D. @wytang.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
with @bowmanspartan.bsky.social
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Laura Jalkanen (she/they) ✨ @laujalkanen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Person: so what are you planning to do after getting your degree? Me: i have a choice between getting my mental health destroyed by either academia or the rest of society
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Vox @voxweb.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
One in four academics in the Netherlands experiences symptoms of depression and/or anxiety, according to research by The Young Academy. 'We’ve created a culture of hypercompetition in academia', says psychiatrist and researcher Joeri Tijdink.
voxweb.nl
A quarter of academics experience symptoms of depression or anxiety, especially young researchers - Vox magazine
One in four academics in the Netherlands experiences symptoms of depression and/or anxiety, according to research by The Young Academy. 'We’ve created a culture of hypercompetition in academia', says ...
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Mothership @mothership.blog · 04/09/2026
How do you get yourself out of a gaming slump? Mothership managing editor @zoehhannah.com has some ideas, starting with a few rounds of I Am Your Beast...
mothership.blog
What games will help me heal from gamer burnout?
"Sometimes, I feel as if I've simply outgrown gaming as a hobby..."
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A Jangle of Accidents @ajangleofaccidents.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I'm fond of a good history book. But finding a good history book isn't necessarily an easy task. The research never ends, as it turns out. #comic #webcomic #books
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