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Author: Amanda Hudgins

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Cisswap

By Amanda Hudgins • May 2nd, 2023

Known under many tags (including Rule 63, genderbending, gender swap, Always a Different Sex), cisswap is an fandom device most commonly used to make male characters women.

Screenshot from the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us, featuring Kansas City rebellion leader Kathleen addressing some imprisoned collaborated with a wry and unsettling smile on her face

The Last of Us on HBO

By Amanda Hudgins • April 11th, 2023

The Last of Us is not the greatest story in video games.

Exploits Feature

Formula 1: Drive to Survive

By Amanda Hudgins • April 3rd, 2023

I don’t care about Formula 1. One of my favorite shows is the Netflix F1 series Drive to Survive.

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A top-down view of several thread spools, most with colorful labels on top.

Thread Fics

By Amanda Hudgins • March 28th, 2023

In a lot of ways, Twitter is the home of the thread fic and when it goes, so will they.

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The full cover art from the dust jacket of the American release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, featuring Harry, Ron and Hermione being carried to safety from a dungeon by Fawkes the phoenix.

Elevating Trash

By Amanda Hudgins • November 30th, 2022

If you, dear reader, are someone who loves Harry Potter, do yourself the service of rereading the series as an adult. Interrogate it. Be prepared to actually know what you’re talking about.

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A still from Breaking Dawn shows a close-up of Bella Swan at the end of her pregnancy. Her face is gaunt and skeletal.

Monstrous Pregnancy

By Amanda Hudgins • October 28th, 2022

Birth is one of the few acts of love that can kill you, a messy, bloody affair that demands everything of the birthing partner.

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A shot of Jacob in wolf form from the movie Twilight.

Hybrid Shifters

By Amanda Hudgins • September 29th, 2022

Ultimately you see in hybrid shifter fiction a desire to create people who are closer to their “natural instincts” over reason, a call back to nature. Is the reason usually sexy? Of course it is.

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In a still from NBC's Hannibal, Hannibal Lector holds the back of Will Graham's neck, the two men's foreheads almost touching.

Hurt/Comfort

By Amanda Hudgins • August 2nd, 2022

Hurt/Comfort is what it says on the tin – a character is hurt, so they must be comforted.

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A still of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, stands in thick woods and readies a bow and arrow to take a shot.

Berklie Novak-Stolz Is Happy to Be “Cringe”

By Amanda Hudgins • June 15th, 2022

An interview with the TikTok creator and fandom enthusiast.

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Four people in casual clothing stand in a hallway, two of them have guns drawn and pointed out of frame.

Ultra-Long

By Amanda Hudgins • December 31st, 2021

Long fanworks are interesting both for their clear amount of dedication to the craft and how much of an outlier they actually are.

A set of five pictures showing the covers for Winter's Orbit, Silent Reading, Love or Hate, Lost in Never Woods and Nothing but Blackened Teeth

I read over 100 books in 2021 and here are the 30 best

By Amanda Hudgins • December 22nd, 2021

What I’m going to do here is talk about the best books I read in 2021.

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Soulmate Goose of Enforcement

By Amanda Hudgins • December 1st, 2021

Geese exist to cause trouble. And honk. Or perhaps, help someone find the love of their life.

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Colonel Sebastian Moran

By Amanda Hudgins • August 5th, 2021

The man who wasn’t there

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A photograph of sliced lemons and limes.

Lemon and Lime

By Amanda Hudgins • July 6th, 2021

A journey to the citrus grove scale of fanfic tags.

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A word cloud of tags to describe Sheriff Stilinski.

Sheriff Stilinski’s Name is John

By Amanda Hudgins • March 25th, 2021

Stiles Stilinski’s name is definitely, unambiguously John. OK?

In a field of bifurcated blue is the cover for Jim Davidson's book The Next Everest, which has a picture of the mountain itself.

2600 Words on The Next Everest

By Amanda Hudgins • March 15th, 2021

When Davidson brings up the idea of returning to the mountain to his wife he writes: “how unlike other husbands, I didn’t spend money on boats, motorcycles or fancy cars” as though there is anything more midlife crisis than spending over $50,000 on the chance to die on a very tall mountain.

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A painting where a woman is attempting to escape the charm of a man.

Regency Era AU

By Amanda Hudgins • March 3rd, 2021

At somepoint, it is always Omegaverse, isn’t it?

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Rarepairs

By Amanda Hudgins • January 5th, 2021

Their pairing often isn’t just not canon – it’s so far off the beaten path that other writers maybe don’t even see it themselves…

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Tagging

By Amanda Hudgins • December 3rd, 2020

Tagging fics is both a conversation and a function in fanfiction.

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Niche Interests

By Amanda Hudgins • September 25th, 2020

“Sometimes, in fiction, you write about your experience so vividly, so precisely, that it could not have come from anyone but you.”

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Quarantine Fics

By Amanda Hudgins • August 10th, 2020

When the entire world is on lockdown, even alternate universes start hitting closer to home.

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No Beta We Die Like Men

By Amanda Hudgins • July 8th, 2020

Readers never know what they’re going to get with this tag. It may be a warning, but it’s not always deserved.

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Expectations

By Amanda Hudgins • May 11th, 2020

There’s a different expectation in books versus fanfiction; one predicated on tags and warnings.

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RPF

By Amanda Hudgins • April 13th, 2020

Bring Real Person Fanfiction onto The Graham Norton Show, cowards.

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When Fanon Eclipses Canon

By Amanda Hudgins • March 10th, 2020

How a Canadian TV show from the ’90s lives on in alternative universe fanfiction.

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Dead Dove Do Not Eat

By Amanda Hudgins • February 6th, 2020

Let this be your warning.

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A+ Parenting

By Amanda Hudgins • May 12th, 2019

Fanfics dive into how one generation’s crappy fictional dad makes the next generation’s neurotic protagonist.

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The Unsinkable Darcy Lewis

By Amanda Hudgins • December 7th, 2018

A side character from Thor has almost 15,000 fanfics featuring her. Amanda Hudgins asks the question: Why does Darcy Lewis persist?

Exploits Feature

“This is America” Parodies

By Amanda Hudgins • October 1st, 2018

“This is America” has been made into a dire warning for more than just the United States.

Exploits Feature

Praying

By Amanda Hudgins • July 2nd, 2018

“You had better hope that a higher power is ready to someday forgive you, it says, because I am not.”

Dispatches from GDC 2018: Day Five

By Amanda Hudgins • March 23rd, 2018

Amanda goes to GDC with a press pass. This is Day 5 of her experience.

A glitched out yellow and orange image of three men playing

Dispatches from GDC 2018: Day Three

By Amanda Hudgins • March 22nd, 2018

Amanda goes to GDC with a press pass. This is a Day Three of her experience.

Dispatches from GDC 2018: Day Two

By Amanda Hudgins • March 21st, 2018

Amanda goes to GDC with a press pass. This is Day 2 of her experience.

A page from the Workers Unite zine that reads "It was their Dream to Work in the Game Industry' heavily glitched out

Dispatches from GDC 2018: Day One

By Amanda Hudgins • March 20th, 2018

Amanda goes to GDC with a Press Pass. This is her daily diary of the experience.

Jennifer Lawrence, long blonde hair hanging around her face, stares directly to camera in this still from mother!

The 10 Worst Movies of 2017

By Amanda Hudgins • December 28th, 2017

Every year has bad movies. This year, Amanda Hudgins will try to list 10 of them.

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Alpha/Beta/Omega FanFic

By Amanda Hudgins • September 7th, 2017

The things we saw when we searched Google images for Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics to illustrate this article would make all the cenobites in Hellraiser blush.

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Mpreg

By Amanda Hudgins • May 4th, 2017

This month’s weird fan fiction trend: male pregnancy!

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Achromatopsia

By Amanda Hudgins • April 5th, 2017

Why do birds suddenly appear…?

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Who is Clan Techie?

By Amanda Hudgins • February 23rd, 2017

Fan ficton: where Judge Dredd meets Star Wars.

The Worst Tool in the Toolbox

By Amanda Hudgins • February 6th, 2017

The easiest way to make a villain seem villainous is cheap and exploitative.

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