Sophie Turner

With video game culture a notoriously hostile place for girls and women, any female gamer in the public eye is vulnerable to an onslaught of harassment. Sophie Turner investigates what happens when online vitriol begins to bleed into ‘real life’.

This feature was the cover story for Volume 4 Issue 2 of Unwinnable Monthly magazine.

If you don't know much about gaming you could be forgiven for thinking that it's all about testosterone-fuelled zombie shooting or hundreds of hours spent alone shouting at fake dragons. But there are so many different types of games out there that if you think that gaming isn't for you, you're probably wrong.

This feature was published in issue 5 of the quarterly feminist publication Parallel Magazine.

This feature was published in Volume 3 Issue 7 of Unwinnable Monthly magazine.

This feature was published in issue 7 of the quarterly feminist publication Parallel Magazine

Ryan MacDonald is a physics student at Oxford University. He likes science fiction, gaming, and has recently finished writing his first novel. And in the near future he may be heading on a one-way trip to Mars.

Recently, fuelled by a glass of wine and a good old fashioned thirst for procrastination, I stumbled across the Internet Archive’s ‘Wayback Machine’. As a fairly tech-savvy 23 year old I’m part of a generation that grew up online, documenting my life through website builders and early social media. Here was the perfect opportunity to flick back through the online scrapbook of my younger years.

You’d think that a convention centre heaving with strangers would be a nightmare for anyone suffering from an anxiety disorder. But some people have found a way to manage their illness and immerse themselves in the spirit of convention life: cosplay.