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Amanda Jean and Austin Chant dive deep into what makes fiction work. Join them as they answer burning questions like: How do you sneak complex gender theory into the structure of a novel? What makes a truly great magic system? How do you humanize a fictional serial killer… and should you?
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Amanda Jean delights in wrestling manuscripts for her day job, worships at the altar of tropes, and has never met a villain or sexy alien she doesn’t like. Austin Chant writes books about gay magic and toxic masculinity, likes his queer stories with a slice of anguish, and kinda wants to be a pirate. Together, they discuss queer romance fiction and the broader world of queer media.
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Content warnings: This episode discusses media which portrays trans characters experiencing suicidal ideation, murder, violence, deadnaming, transphobia, drug abuse, self-destructive behavior, and abuse. We also reference real-life attempted suicide (including a method). Follow Austin down the rabbit hole of exploring trans narratives, both subtext…
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Episode 8: Video Games Are Bad, Actually
1:25:21
1:25:21
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Content warnings: Anti-black racism, antisemitism, mentions of the Holocaust, mentions of slavery, domestic violence, references to sexual assault, murder, death, violence, mentions of stereotyped drug abuse, mentions of android body horror, fatphobia, transphobia, and generally just a lot of co-opting of real-life struggles in an allegory about an…
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Content warnings: discussion of children stabbing things, shitty dudes, homophobia, anti-Native racism, and gender essentialism Summary: In this pantastic episode, Austin and Amanda disagree on the particulars of their drunken book buying and wander through the hundred-year legacy of Peter Pan's cultural mythos: everything from the gender politics …
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Episode 6: My Son Is Not a Jerk Jock
1:00:26
1:00:26
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Amanda Jean(-Luc Picard) talks about the myth of Kirk vs Picard and Star Trek's very impactful, if flawed, ethos. (Seriously, she will fight you about James T. Kirk.) She gets real tl;dr about how both captains were shaped by the eras they were written in, how Gene Roddenberry was more complex than his legacy suggests, and how positing Kirk as the …
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Episode 5: Who Was the Man Who Betrayed Harry Styles
1:00:47
1:00:47
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Austin journeys through the annals of revisionist history with Monique Truong's The Book of Salt and Ron Hansen's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Amanda has a meltdown over a man named Bobert. This episode tackles big sexy metaphors, the future of real person fan fiction, and the great power (and great responsibility) of…
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Episode 4: A Layer Cake of Metaphor
1:02:33
1:02:33
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Amanda takes Austin and listeners to wurch (witch church) with a breakdown of the subverted fairytale elements and treatment of puberty as witchcraft within Margaret Mahy's The Changeover: a Supernatural Romance. She delves into why fourteen-year-old protagonist Laura Chant is a boss and why the love interest, Sorry Carslile, is her trauma son. The…
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Austin takes Amanda on a whirlwind tour of Magictown and the weird, tropey, twisty worlds of Diana Wynne Jones to answer the following questions: What makes a good magic system? What makes fantasy feel real? And what do wizardry and the culinary arts have in common? (More than you’d think.) Content Warnings: Discussions of child neglect and thinly …
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Episode 2: Thomas Harris' Very Special Man
1:03:36
1:03:36
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Austin accompanies Amanda as she revisits twenty years of fannish enthusiasm and exasperation to discuss the Hannibal Lecter tetralogy by Thomas Harris. Specifically, why are the first two in the series so good despite their pitfalls? Why is the prequel so underwhelming? Amanda talks the perils of showing the monster, writing from a genius' POV, ch…
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In the first episode of The Red Pen, Austin drags Amanda straight into the radical gender theory of queer and feminist sci-fi/fantasy from 1960 to 2018. Topics of discussion include: Is a genderless society a utopia? What about a society in which everyone is free to choose their own gender—in theory? And what do the gender binary and the Cold War h…
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Episode 40: Thanks for Coming to Our TED Talk
1:12:29
1:12:29
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Content warning: This episode contains spoilers for the movie Annihilation (as well as some spoilers for the book it's based on). The ending is in no way spoiled, but some plot elements are laid out. There are also spoilers for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Also, suicide is mentioned. After two and a half years, forty episodes, many arguments with Sk…
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Content warning: This episode mentions the Killing Stalking manhwa, discusses problematic elements of dramas (such as non-consensual grabbing, stalking, kidnapping, and misogynistic behavior), mentions drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, fictional suicide in Orphan Black, underage relationships with regards to Queer as Folk, microaggressions an…
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Content warnings: This episode references potentially triggering topics, including abusive relationships, gaslighting, murder, cannibalism, sexual assault, violence, incest, Real Person Fan Fiction, and age differences--a lot of triggers that constitute "dark" or "problematic" fiction. While we don't dwell on many of these subjects, they are refere…
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Content warning: This contains a trigger warning for a dead dog in Killing Eve and also mentions mild spoilers for the endings of Time Was and Person of Interest. After repeated technical failure, Brooklyn Wallace finally manages to chat with Austin and Amanda about her upcoming black F/F romance Sugar and Ice. Predictably, the group is sidetracked…
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Content warning: We discuss (though not in any detail) Amanda's current ear infection and a staph ear infection Austin had a few years back, as well as general health/medical stuff. Skip to 9:38 if this is a potential trigger or squick for you. There are also some spoilers for The Ring/Ringu and the video game Until Dawn. (First off, apologies for …
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Content warning: This episode references sexual abuse and harassment, and generally a lot of toxic behavior and boundary crossing. None of it is explicitly discussed, but please take care of yourself if you might be triggered. Austin and Amanda get serious and address racism, gatekeeping, abuse, amateurism, and other broken elements in queer publis…
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Episode 34: Manic Pixie Scottish Banana
1:11:59
1:11:59
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At the top of the episode, Austin and Amanda briefly address the ongoing revelations of misconduct and abuse within queer publishing. We stand with authors. Austin and Amanda go digging for comedy gold in ancient Harlequin blurbs, then get serious and talk about how damn hard beginnings can be. Amanda talks about what she typically finds missing in…
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This episode contains spoilers for God's Own Country. Celebrate Valentine’s Day two weeks late with the always-prepared THR! Amanda recommends a podcast and tells a story about how she wins friends and influences people, which is followed by the hosts struggling to contain laughter over romance titles generated by a neural network (the punishment f…
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Episode 32: Waiting for My Emotions to Run Out
1:12:12
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Warning for very mild spoilers for The Adventure Zone podcast. We warn in-episode and it's nothing earth shattering. Austin and Amanda reminisce about their experiences at Read With Pride, which recently announced its end, and try to describe the Lynchian quality of the Seattle Public Library's fourth floor. There's also discussion of New Adult sto…
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Episode 31: A Peach by Any Other Name
1:15:50
1:15:50
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Content warning: part of this episode discusses a fictional relationship between a 17-year-old and a 24-year-old. THR returns with a semi-revamped format! Austin and Amanda talk about the future of the show, delve into some of the realities of freelancing from their own experiences, and spend the last two-thirds of the episode talking about Call Me…
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Content warning: Austin and Amanda are tipsy/drunk in this episode again. Weird stuff happens. If drunkeness or people talking about being drunk (and hungover) bugs you, take care to skip this ep and we'll be back with another regular one soon. THR celebrates its second anniversary with another infamous drunk episode! Or that was the plan, anyway. …
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Episode 29: Machines Fueled By Spite
1:16:44
1:16:44
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Content warning: There's two pejorative terms/slurs for a promiscuous person (and a sex worker) mentioned in the episode. This episode tried its hardest to foil us: between meowing cats, barking dogs, ambient rain, and Amanda's recording mysteriously stopping at four minutes and forcing her to rely on a shoddy recording of the Skype call, it's a mi…
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Ginn Hale's newest book, The Long Past, is out as of 10/3/17! She joins THR to talk about writing and researching alt Westerns, world building, avoiding the whitewash of history, and also chickens. The episode has a chicken thing. Also discussed is the miracle of modern plumbing, writing religion when you grew up outside of religion, and yet more c…
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Content warning: this episode contains references to fisting, actor Kim Woo Bin's cancer diagnosis, and our typical NSFW irreverence. Austin and Amanda bore the heat of summer in an enclosed space to bring you this episode of Hopeless After Dark. Hear them talk about Kdramas, deadlines, Doomfist, that time Amanda touched Harry Shum Jr but not in a …
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Episode 26: Gay Elves and Sexy Lizard People
58:35
58:35
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Fantasy and speculative fiction is the topic of the day! Austin and Amanda throw around some loose definitions, give examples of their favorite queer fantasy (send Amanda more gaslamp manuscripts!). and writing fantasy with romance in it vs writing romance in a fantasy setting. They answer some questions from Twitter and wonder why people bother to…
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Co-authors of the upcoming Heart of the Steal, Avon Gale and Roan Parrish, join THR to chat about their cowriting process! They also talk about working with an agent, hideous hotel breakfasts, and how they got started in the queer romance industry. Amanda reveals she cries at every episode of Friday Night Lights, Roan is not a food snob, no one rea…
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Content warning: this episode (briefly) mentions fisting and choking, calls certain Overwatch characters Daddy, and generally features a lot of irreverent filth. Welcome to Hopeless After Dark, a new subset of THR that isn't exclusively dedicated to queer romance. We reached out to Twitter to ask some of our listeners what they'd like to hear us ta…
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Episode 23: Amnesia and Peril and Cowboys, Oh My
1:15:26
1:15:26
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Content warning: There are a few mentions of racism and a mention of rape in this episode. THR talks tropes! From their favorites (ask about Austin's love for cowboys and Amanda's for arranged marriage) to their least favorites, when a trope can be neutral, and when it can be potentially harmful. They also cover some tropes that intersect with or d…
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Episode 22: Kill Your (Peter) Darlings
1:40:19
1:40:19
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Co-host Austin Chant's novel Peter Darling was released in February, and Amanda and Austin break down the editing process over many months and three recording sessions. Hear them stress over deadlines, complain about talking whales and Hook's outfits, give props to the Captive Prince trilogy for various inspiration, discuss the versions of the book…
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Megan Derr, CEO of Less Than Three Press and a prolific author of high fantasy and spec, covers world building, including where she starts, info dump, winging it, dialog, and languages. She also talks about ace rep, including what she's looking for at LT3 and as an ace reader. The group also discusses how Amanda's got a ton of unread books on her K…
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Content warnings: The Captive Prince series contains dark subject matter, including sexual and physical abuse, so please proceed with caution as we briefly discuss some of those elements. The Captive Prince started life as a free online serial and became a best seller. Author C.S. Pacat talks process, plotting, her influences as a young queer perso…
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