Dec 2017 - Submission #1

Xiph0 · Dec 28, 2017

Why Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was absolutely never allowed to drink, a humorous article written and published by former Head Auror Harry Potter in the year 2025. Or the time in fourth year Albus Dumbledore got drunk enough to take me on the first of our many adventures!

A preface,

In no way is this telling a way to smear, or attack, the great man and wizard that Albus Dumbledore was … he guided me through my years in Hogwarts as a mentor and I will always look up to him and respect him. Like I said when I was in my sixth year, I was Dumbledore’s man and I always will be.

But in recent years I always find myself telling stories of how serious and ominous the man was, and it painted the picture of a man who could not have fun. Many of his former colleagues, myself included, will tell you that this is not true!

Albus always had a sweet for any student that would visit his office, a joke to pick you up, or an understanding ear to listen to concerns. But under no circumstances did he offer, or even contain in his office, an alcoholic beverage after the winter holidays of nineteen-ninety-four. Here is why:

Professor Dumbledore had called me to his office twenty-ninth of December to discuss something. At the time I thought it was to see if I had anymore of the dreams that I had during the summer. I was wrong.

My first clue should have been the password to enter his office, which was “Ogden’s Finest” but alas I was a clueless fourteen-year-old at the time.

As I walked into the office I could tell something was amiss. It might’ve been the heavy scent of alcohol that permeated the air, or the way Albus’ eyes were half-lidded but I instantly suspected that we weren’t going to be talking about dreams tonight. His head slowly moved from its tilted downwards position as his eyes moved from his glass of amber liquid to my own. It took him a few seconds to recognize my face, but when he did his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Harry, would you like a glass?” That was only one of the things that threw me off, the first being him offering me a drink of what was surely Firewhiskey. The second being that I never thought Albus to be a whiskey man, he looked more like he would have had more of a taste for champagne.

I replied with a steady, “I don’t think I should be drinking underage … even if it is on the hols.”

“Nonsense,” with a wave of his hand one of the quills on his desk turned into a glass tumbler and with a flick of the other hand a handle of Firewhiskey floated and poured its contents into the glass. “Drink, we have much to discuss!”

It struck me how unbelievably brilliant this man was, performing a wandless transfiguration and levitation spell while intoxicated must not be the trivial task he made it look like. After I sat where he set the glass down I asked, “Sir … what exactly are we to discuss?” I looked to him to an answer, and waited.

And waited.

It was getting quite awkward, his staring, until I realized he was waiting for me to actually drink. So being the brave, and innocent, teen I was I took a swig and swallowed … and promptly went into a coughing fit.

After twenty seconds of coughing I looked up to meet the amused gaze of the Professor, at least someone enjoyed that because I did not.

“Harry, lad, we’re hear to talk about the yule ball.” My stomach dropped, had everyone seen what a spectacle I had made of myself?

“I’m not quite sure I understand, sir?” I replied red-faced looking anywhere but the professor.

“Mi’ boy, you must not be that oblivious to the world,” He took a large drink from his glass, and taking it as my que I also took a much smaller one. “You behaved absolutely abysmally towards young Parvati, if I do say so myself.”

By now my cheeks were rosy from both the strong whiskey and the topic of conversation, “Sir, respectfully, I’m not completely sure why that’s any of your business?” I responded with some force as he took another drag from his glass, I was not about to be lectured on romance from the headmaster of my school!

“Harry, even I could tell that after your performance you weren’t going to get the chance to … as you kid’s these day say, get lucky.” He said, his eyes now shining brightly with the hilarity of the conversation.

Now used to the drink, I took another drink from my now conspicuously full drink how had that happened and put my head into my hands. Not quite believing I was having this conversation with my headmaster that was rumored to play for the other team romantically. It was like what I’d imagine talking to a homosexual great-great-uncle about girls would feel like. So lost in my tipsy misery I didn’t notice the professor downing both our topped off glasses and getting up with a spring in his step that nobody over the age of one-hundred, much less one-hundred and fifty, should have!

“Harry, this is serious, I feel obligated as your professor to correct your behavior. Let us be off!” He enthusiastically said as he power-walked in his bright pink and purple robes to the door. I hastily got up to follow asking, “Professor where are we going!?”

He replied with a jubilant, “An adventure mi’boy, an adventure!” Surely this couldn’t go wrong could it? It could and most definitely would.

I followed Albus at a steady jog trying to match pace with his long-legged power-walk, how did this man have so much bloody energy! He stopped abruptly once we were a few steps out of the front gate of Hogwarts and pulled out a silver flask from his pointy hat, and took a few gulps of what I assumed was the same alcoholic beverage we’d had inside. Then grabbed my arm and-

“Bloody hell, what was that!?” I said after I empty the contents of my stomach on the paved street in front of a wooden tavern with what looked like, but probably wasn’t, a bright neon picture of an old-school witch sitting on her broom side-saddle with her legs spread wide open. The sign in front of the tavern read: “The Tantalizing Witch! Come get bewitched by the most alluring witches this side of the Isle!”

Albus had taken me to the wizards variant of a strip club, the amount of things wrong with this situation had just tripled!

“Professor take us back! We - I – cannot be seen here! You’ll get removed from your position as headmaster, and I’ll get expelled! H” I was in a panic, if Mione’ found out about this she would kill me! While I was panicking, a dark look passed over the headmaster’s face as he said, “The Supreme Mugwump does what the Supreme Mugwump pleases!” His face then brightened, “But I merely assumed you were, as they say, witches and not wizards! But if it’s the opposite I know just the place! Come take my arm.”

I took three steps back, there was so much nope involved with this whole situation that I just needed to step away.

“No, professor, you need to take us back before anyone notices I’m gone. You may be able to get away with this kind of stuff, but I can’t! If I get caught inside any of these kind of establishments, the press will chew me up and spit me out. Add on the fact that I’m the fourth champion in the TRIwizard tournament my name won’t even be worth the paper the prophet writes on!” I’m pretty sure I’m hyperventilating as I finally lose my carefully kept cool with the professor!

His face loses its joviality as he watches me, I would have thought some sense of sobriety was returning to him, but I’d also seen how much he’d drank while he was with me not counting what he drank before I had shown up in his office. “Harry, I truly am sorry, I only wanted to show you a fun time in this time of great stress for you. This was something that I presume your father or Sirius, if he could, would do for you. I see now that I have only added to the stress you’ve been experiencing.” He once again held out his arm to teleport us back to Hogwarts.

I eyed at it, then back to his face trying to catch any deception in its features and saw none. I grabbed it, closed my eyes, and experienced, for the second time that day, what felt like being pulled through a tube only to open my eyes only to see a Albus pull out a flask and finish it off before vanishing it wandlessly.

I looked around and, thank Merlin we were back at the Hogwarts front gate! Albus walked with me to the wide doors of the castle and walked inside with me. He put a hand on my shoulder and patted it a few times with a lost look in his eyes.

“Best to get back to Gryffindor tower Harry.” He said warily, like his age was finally catching up with him.

“Yes sir, and thank you sir for trying to help … it’s appreciated.” I responded, matching his mood as the adventurous night was starting to take its toll on me. I started to walk up to the tower before he called out, “Mr. Potter, I’d like for none of our adventures to get to your fellow classmates. Say … let us just keep this adventure between you and me yes?”

I could only nod my head and continued my way back up to the tower. The one thing on my mind as I walked was that I was never ever going to drink with the Headmaster ever again!

Halt · Dec 28, 2017

My main issue with this story is that it feels...small. I don't meant the length itself, but the idea of "Why Albus should never drink", given who Albus is and to what heights of insanity people who are drunk get to IRL, this doesn't feel like much. Honestly, dragging someone (okay, Harry's underaged, but still) to a strip club just isn't all that entertaining, especially when you kill the scenario as soon as it begins. A lot of the hilarity, I feel, could be had inside the Tantalizing Witch. The length hurts a lot of the story in other aspects too as there's not enough time for atmosphere or pacing.

Mechanics wise - there's a lot of telling done here instead of showing, and I disliked the article style of writing interspersed with a first person PoV. The piece is too short for it to work as an integrated whole and comes across as two entirely different people narrating events. Harry sounds remarkably unadventurous here as well, protesting too much. It doesn't seem like him in canon and makes him a bit unrelatable to be honest.

Original Concept - 1/5
Characters - 2/5
Plot - 2/5
Pacing - 2/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

Final Score: 10/30

Jarizok · Dec 28, 2017

Original Concept: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Plot: 1/5
Pacing: 1/5
Setting & Atmosphere: 3/5
Grammar & Mechanics: 2/5

This story feels unfinished. Harry visiting Dumbledore’s office during fourth year is a fine starting point for this story, if a bit obvious a choice. When they take off for the bar though, that’s where you expect the story to really get rolling. Instead they turn around right away and that’s it.

I’ve set myself the task of close reading the first 2 pages of each entry in Docs so I can mark errors and such. For this story, there wasn’t a paragraph that I couldn’t find anything to improve upon for. There were issues with punctuation throughout, and this bled into sentence/paragraph structure too. There were a couple of spelling errors too. Overall, it didn’t quite read idiomatic.

For all that, I did get pulled into Harry Potter mode. There’s not too much description of Hogwarts. Instead, the author relies on our established headcanon of what everything looks like, and that works just fine for me. Obviously it’s not overly impressive either though.

Pacing and plot here are weird, because there’s really only setup followed by the end. It doesn’t make for good storytelling IMO.

Dumbledore is of course hard to get right. I’m still going to say this was not a version of him I liked. Him calling Harry ‘lad’ and Parvati by her first name feels off, nevermind the premise of the story. Harry’s reactions throughout were alright. I disagree with Halt on this. I can sort of see canon!Harry act like this Harry. It’s not like his other adventures so far where people get hurt/die if he doesn’t do the adventure thing. There’s not much depth to either character though.

Overall, this story as it sits is about a 2/5. There’s so much room for fleshing out the characters and having things happen that wasn’t used. The word count is <2000 words right now. I think this would have been better if the author had chosen to take advantage of the higher word cap.

Final score: 11/30

Eimim · Dec 28, 2017

This is just... bland. There was nothing particularly interested, amusing, or even surprising about Dumbledore's actions, considering the build up.
I'm not good at spotting grammar mistakes in English, so there's not much I can comment on that front, but the writing did seem quite standard.
Perhaps it was wrong to make this from a first person view point. That seems to contribute to the lack of humor in the entire interaction.
This is simply a bit too forgettable.

Original Concept: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Plot: 2/5
Pacing: 1/5
Setting & Atmosphere: 2/5
Grammar & Mechanics: 3/5

Final score: 11/30

BTT · Dec 28, 2017

Missed its mark. You took the premise at its most surface level, which isn't in itself a bad thing, but the humour didn't land. It's not the kind of humour that's wrong, it's just not all that funny. Then it tries to end on a sad note, which just didn't fit at all. The story could use some work on a technical level, too: I spotted loads of grammar issues both small and larger.

Original Concept - 3/5
Characters - 2/5
Plot - 2/5
Pacing - 3/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 1/5

Final score: 12/30

ScottPress · Dec 28, 2017

This is thoroughly unambitious. Reads like it was hastily thrown together in an hour with no planning of any kind and submitted just before the deadline. DLP doesn't hand out "If you try, you're a winner too!" participation trophies. Frankly, this was just embarrassing. Something I'd expect to find on FFN.

Original Concept: 1/5

I'm grading this by DLP standards, which should be high. Albus got drunk, took Harry to a titty bar... Probably the least original interpretation possible for the prompt given.

Characters: 1/5

This is too short to support any kind of character. I guess you could say nothing here was egregiously OOC so I could just slot the canon in, but even that isn't true, because Dumbledore taking Harry to a strip club is out of character and this entry has done nothing to ground this premise outside of using the prompt. The barest minimum to qualify for being featured in the competition, nothing more.

Plot: 1/5

Come on. Albus is drunk, takes Harry to a strip club, but they don't even go inside. What plot?

Pacing: 2/5

I guess this piece has some things in it that happen in a sequence and at least it went by quickly enough that I wasn't annoyed on top of being disappointed. On the other hand, no time was given to any story beat to let it develop. Everything was just chop-chop-chop, sentence to sentence, rather jarring. No flow.

Setting & Atmosphere: 1/5

Setting is canon. Nothing here that would suggest otherwise. Atmosphere is something you build with good prose and word choice... Meh.

Grammar & Mechanics: 2/5

I guarantee this was spat out and submitted without any editing. Issues with punctuation and sentence structure throughout. I won't give the lowest possible score because it's readable and clear enough, but no more than that.

Total score: 8/30

Zombie · Dec 28, 2017

I don't like article clippings in fics. I feel like it detracts because I'll skip them and later have to go back and read them because there was something important to the plot in them. They're decoration if anything. Your Dumbledore was only Dumbledore in the sense that he used some of the same phrases that you would have seen in canon.

I could see this as a Rick and Morty setup. Dumbledore pulling Harry out of class to go out on a deadly adventure and the ending not being so clear on if it was a positive or negative experience, but to do that, you would have needed to shift Dumbledore's tone entirely. As well as Harry's. He's much to bullheaded to follow along as a Morty would have.

Overall, your execution missed its mark. I can see where you tried to self-direct and keep it to the premise, but that you only scratched the surface. This feels like an unfinished piece, and that I should be seeing more. More of the adventures, rather than just one or two, to build a base line for how I feel about your characters.

Original Concept - 1/5
Characters - 2/5
Plot - 2/5
Pacing - 2/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

Final Score: 10/30

Sorrows · Dec 28, 2017

The framing of Harry looking back is a good idea. The thing about this prompt is when you think about it, if you want to stick to a canon storyline there is a limited window for Harry to witness a drunk Dumbledore. This one follows the spirit of the prompt the best.

It's a good effort. It's a shame you didn't follow through and get the two of them into some situations but I imagine that may have been the origninal plan before time constraints made you wrap things up early.

I think overall this peice does not quite land in the sweetspot for cringe humour, but it has a strong voice and reasonable placing up to the cut off end.

Original Concept - 3/5
The concept is straight forward and perhaps a little shallow but it deals with the prompt head on. It's both an unoriginal response to the prompt and original in that I've not come across it in the wider HP fanfiction so I'll put it in the middle.

Characters - 1/5
I think this would have worked better if you had made Dumbledore and Harry's characterization even more extreme. If you pushed it into absurdity would have helped wave away the OOCness of Dumbledore deciding to take Harry to a titty bar.

Plot - 2/5
It does fall short, you could have done some funny things with a magical strip club but unfortunately you decided not to go there. The outside descriptions are good though Harry's reaction to it seems muddled.

Pacing - 2/5
The pacing is practical enough for what it is, though it still suffers from its abrupt ending. I think twisting the funny story into a sad moment at the end is in itself not a bad idea, it could have had a real impact but as it is, it did not quite land.

Setting & Atmosphere - 2/5
The atmosphere I think is too normal for the premise. If you are going to break charecters so thoroughly you should just go for it. If you wanted it to be more grounded you would need to work on your Dumbledore characterization to make us feel this would be plausible. It could be done but you have to overcome the fact Dumbledore is dragging a minor in his charge to a strip club.

Grammar & Mechanics - 3/5
Serviceable but could do with a clean up. I think the fact adult Harry is recounting the story muddies the pov at times.

13/30

Anarchy · Dec 28, 2017

Original Concept: 2
Characters: 1
Plot: 1
Pacing: 2
Setting & Atmosphere: 2
Grammar & Mechanics: 2
(10/30)

First few paragraphs gave a hint of maybe something interesting, but the story fell kind of flat. Didn't like the random 'Mione thrown in there (which I suspect is probably just to troll people). Dumbledore is way OOC, even if drunk. Tease of the "Tantalizing Witch" could maybe have been interesting for a 14 year old, but nothing came of it (and that would probably be a way better reason as to why Dumbledore doesn't drink anymore). Honestly felt like the story was written on the day entries were due, so it's scored as such.

Oz · Dec 28, 2017

Sorry to say but this just isn't very entertaining.

Plotwise it just doesn't go anywhere and the premise makes no sense. No one's gonna give up drinking 150+ years into their life over something so trivial, and the 'adventure' to the strip club is a complete anticlimax. Nothing at all happens.

The writing was rushed, mechanical and spent too much time telling and not showing. Harry said, Dumbledore said, he grabbed my arm, I backed away. No sounds, no smells, no feeling.

Characterisation was just poor. Didn't feel like Harry and Dumbledore at all. Not much more else to say on that point.

Original Concept - 2/5
Characters - 1/5
Plot - 1/5
Pacing - 2/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

Final score: 9/30

Shinysavage · Dec 28, 2017

Dumbledore thinks Harry's behaviour is abysmal? I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an AU, if I have different social standards to the writer, or if I'm mis-remembering canon; I'm not saying Harry was date of the year, but he was just a little clueless, wasn't he? Parvati ditches him after one dance.

A little nitpicky, perhaps, but it rather undermined the whole premise, as I couldn't see why Dumbledore was shocked enough by Harry's actions to conclude that booze and strippers were what he needed. It's the mention of James or Sirius approving that really kills it though, as it highlights the fact that if this had been Harry and Sirius rather than Dumbledore, it would have worked (at the basic premise level, at least). Then there's the fact that nothing really happens. I felt like this was thrown together in a bit of a panic, but I don't think it's unsalvageable.

On a technical level, I spotted some spelling/grammar errors, and the writing is average - again, not unsalvageable, but easily the weakest entry on that basis.

However, we're not just marking this on its merits as a piece of writing, but as a response to a prompt, and in fairness this is probably the entry that most closely cleaves to that prompt, which I'll give credit for.

Original Concept - 2/5
Characters - 1/5
Plot - 3/5 (credit given for adherence to the prompt)
Pacing - 2/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

11/30

Ched · Dec 29, 2017

I'm going to read/review without reading any of the other reviews first. I personally do this by opening the thread twice, then hitting 'reply' on one of them. Then I make comments as I read.

The initial paragraph confused me just a hair. At first I thought it was a description or summary of the story but then the second sentence had 'me' in it and I was forced to consider that it was part of the story itself. That's a nitpick that can be fixed on edits, but it did distract me from the story. Also it had an exclamation point, and I'm in the camp of using those with extreme prejudice... but again, minor.

A good first paragraph though is vital for your later endeavors. Hard to get feedback though in this case due to the anonymous nature.

I like the idea that Harry has realized how stories of Dumbledore have shifted from the man he was, the one remembered by generations of students, to that of a serious and ominous wizard. I could see Harry realizing that and stepping in to fix it with a more light hearted story of his own.

Good idea.

Here's an example of some phrasing you could probably adjust to make it flow better:

Professor Dumbledore had called me to his office twenty-ninth of December to discuss something. At the time I thought it was to see if I had anymore of the dreams that I had during the summer. I was wrong.
Click to expand...

First you're using too many words, and second you're using too much passive voice. Or at least those are my opinions. You're writing this story as if Harry is dictating it or telling it to someone, in that case I'd try something more like...

Professor Dumbledore called me to his office on the twenty ninth of December. I assumed he wanted to ask about my dreams of Voldemort and if I'd had any more over the summer.

Just getting rid of "had" and "was" helps, in my opinion.

Getting a few mixed feelings here - the initial image of Albus with half-lidded eyes and the comment about not talking about dreams tonight made me think Albus was in the mood for luuurve. And Harry is naive enough to not think anything of the password being "Ogden's Finest" but at the same time had given thought to Albus being more of a champagne man than a whiskey one?

I like that Albus can cast brilliantly even while drunk, and that Harry noticed it.

So when Albus gets drunk he tries to be a mentor in the areas of romance and helping Harry get lucky? Hah, well, if it was going to happen he'd have to be drunk. I'll give you that.

Way too many exclamation points though.

Also sometimes it feels like an older!Harry is telling this story in article format and sometimes it feels like you want me to be in young!Harry's shoes. But it's really tricky to do both, and you don't quite nail that aspect of it. For example:

Albus had taken me to the wizards variant of a strip club, the amount of things wrong with this situation had just tripled!
Click to expand...

Now, if you want us to be in young!Harry's head, it's going to take him a second or two longer. He's fourteen, right? So there'd be a few seconds where he tries to figure out what he's looking at and if Dumbledore is serious. He might also start to think about sex at this point, whether he wants it here or not, and get tongue-tied. And he's unlikely to think of him as "Albus."

Blood rushed immediately away from my head. A strip club? This was a strip club! I glanced at the Headmaster, cheerfully bouncing on his toes. Oh hell no, I thought. The glowing witch sitting on her broom winked at me, shifted her legs. I revised my plan. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just look.

But if you want us to be older!Harry's head, you'd want to phrase it differently.

Albus had taken me to Gyroskopic Alley, wizarding britain's red light district. And me, fourteen still! I'd never seen anything more than a pinup in my dorm mates magazines.

Now that said, I do think it's possible that both POVs can be done together. You could switch back and forth to get bits of both, but that would require more skill. I think it might be the best option but also the hardest to get right.

And... well, there's one overall concept that's not working for me.

You are having Harry write this as a "hey, here's a funny story to counteract all those other ones you've heard about Albus!"

But a grown man in a position of power over a young boy took him to a strip club against his will. As it's written I just can't find that funny. Even at the end of the story when Albus realizes it was a bad idea he doesn't seem to realize why - it's like the thinks it was a bad idea because it stressed Harry out. But even if Harry had been interested it still is very not-okay. It'd take a lot of tweaking for me to find it funny instead of worrisome.

Original Concept: 5
I haven't seen this done before, and while it doesn't blow me out of the water it is original enough. Albus gets drunk and takes Harry to the strip club is sort of amusing on the surface. Edited to update to 5 - bonus point up from 4 because he/she stuck to the damn prompt.
Characters: 2
Neither of them feels in-character to me. I realize that is partially intentional on Dumbledore's part but the point still stands.
Plot: 2
There isn't really a plot here, but at least it has a beginning and end.
Pacing: 3
Middling - it wasn't slow but I didn't find it difficult to put down.
Setting & Atmosphere: 2
Nothing special, fairly generic overall, but you get an extra point for the strip club description of the witch on the broom.
Grammar & Mechanics: 2
Motherfucking exclamation points, mate. Use fewer. Also some tense issues a time or two. The bit I mentioned about not being sure if you wanted me to be in young!Harry's head or older!Harry's probably fits under mechanics too I guess.

Edit for TOTAL: 16/30

AlbusPHolmes · Dec 29, 2017

Original Concept: 1/5

Nothing about the concept of the story jumped out and grabbed me by the jolly bits - very run-of-the-mill stuff here. A jaunt to the strip club could have manifested into something worth reading, but the fun ends even before it has the chance to grow a few curly bits.

Characters: 2/5

Strength of characterization tends to be a big factor in whether or not I'll enjoy a story, and this one missed the mark widely on that score. As something of DLP's resident Dumbledore-voice expert, there's little here that hits the right notes for me - the author slathers on a few token stock phrases and mannerisms that are hallmarks of the Headmaster, but without much substance to hold them up, everything falls rather flat in the end. I do concede that Dumbledore is perhaps the most difficult character for writers to nail, so nothing here to be ashamed of. Harry is also decidedly off, and as this story appears to be canon-compliant, it detracts from the quality of characterization in the end.

Plot: 1/5

The plot starts off at trot, but then slumps breathlessly well before the finish line. I'm not sure if time constraints or a lack of ideas hampered the advancement of the plot beyond the initial premise of drunken-Dumbledore takes tries to take Harry to a strip club, but the ending was rather abrupt and rather disappointing, I should add.

Pacing: 1/5

The storytelling moves at a brisk pace, and though there's something to be said for brevity, this hurts rather than aids the story.

Setting & Atmosphere: 2/5

Not much to see here. Immersion is hard to do in 1st-person pov, even in the hands of more experienced writers, and with a max-word limit no less. It's a bit of a subjective ruling here, but within reason, as a reader, I much prefer writing that paints with words than ones that leave the reader to fill in most of the blanks, and there isn't really much to see here beyond bare-bones storytelling.

Grammar & Mechanics: 3/5

For what it's worth the writing is far from unreadable, with few grammatical errors. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the author is still fairly new at this craft, there's a clear absence of an identity or flourish that is indicative of someone who's found their feet well enough to begin having a distinctive style. Not bad, as far as efforts go, but there's definitely room for improvement. Stick with it, OP! You'll get better as time goes on.

Overall Score: 10/30

Nemrut · Dec 30, 2017

I'll have to echo the general mood on this one. It just felt...disappointing, I'd say. The beginning was good enough, the set up of how Harry talked about Dumbledore was solid and the older Harry voice was rather well done. However, once the younger Harry took over, it's when the story started to lose me. Young Harry didn't feel at all like Harry, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as many of the good HP fanfics have Harry sounding nothing like his canon self. The problem was that Harry was replaced with a boring, bland "why I would never" kinda character.

What could have worked would be Harry saying that he did say these things, that he was appalled at what Dumbledore offered, in order to sound responsible but in the flashback we see him doing the opposite. Or as other said, have them do something there rather than just turn back.

Drunk Dumbledore wasn't as entertaining as he should be and the one shot felt more sad than funny, which is fair enough but I honestly don't think you've aimed for sad.

So yeah, good effort but it didn't really do it for me.

Original Concept - 1/5
Characters - 1/5
Plot - 2/5
Pacing - 2/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 2/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

10/30

Jeram · Dec 30, 2017

Original Concept: 3/5 - It's mildly original, there are a few intriguing little bits in here.
Characters: 2/5 - the characters don't feel right.
Plot: 1/5 - the plot doesn't really exist.
Pacing: 2/5 - The pacing was running and then hit a brick wall.
Setting & Atmosphere: 3/5 - Pure average to me.
Grammar & Mechanics: 3/5 - A lot of little technical issues, but not horrible ones.

This unfortunately felt much like a big tease. The setup was good enough, getting me interested in the concept and wanting to see where it was going. But the conversation felt a bit off, more than just due to the intoxication, and there were some odd turns of phrases that didn't work for me.

I can accept some OOC business if it leads somewhere interesting, but it didn't hit the humor mark for me. Or the "What was the point?" mark either. Ultimately it's not funny enough for me to excuse the lack of point.

Score: 14/30

Thaumologist · Dec 31, 2017

Original Concept 4/5

I like the idea that Dumbledore sees Harry's fuck-up, and decides to rectify the future problems. Whilst it isn't sensible, the idea that Dumbledore is trying to do well, even through an eccentric method, is something I don't tend to see frequently. I would've preferred to see this expanded on though. I dislike the framing device of an article, because it doesn't add anything - it just makes me think Harry's a bit dim: "I don't mean to disparage his reputation, but my old teacher got blackout drunk and tried to take me to a strip-club, then a gay bar".

Characters 1/5

We see no decision making going on. Dumbledore (who acts nothing like in canon) had a stroke of genius, and pulled this on Harry with no warning. Harry stammers and stutters his way through, which is fair enough, I guess, but there's little to nothing that makes me think these characters are linked with their canon counterparts. This could just as easily be Ron and Dumbledore, or Rick and Morty.

Plot 2/5

Simple, and not something I've seen before... And then it stops and goes back on itself. Nothing happens.
You could have had them go in, and finish up with a hungover Harry waking in a hotel room with strippers and fairy dust, which would have shown at least the story happened.
But you had a beginning, middle and end, so it's not the worst I've seen.

Pacing 1/5

Dumbledore starts from "Let's go to a strip club". In less than three paragraphs he goes through "I'll do whatever the fuck I want", to "you're gay, fine!", to "urgh, let's go home".
There's no real set-up, other than Harry's thoughts in the short walk to the office. He then spends about ten lines drinking, then twenty lines at the bar, then goes home. It all feels a bit rushed.

Setting & Atmosphere 3/5

The idea of the neon sign is about the stand-out thing. The rest is all a bit meh.

Grammar & Mechanics 2/5

New speakers need new lines.
Try not to repeat words too soon.
There were other issues, but mostly minor things - Harry's phrasing didn't always seem to work and so on.

Total score out of 30 13

Methos · Jan 1, 2018

Edit:
I went back to read the rules of reviewing the stories, and found this:

Total score out of 30 (each category above worth 1 through 5). Your score should be accompanied by 150+ words of review/commentary on the story.
Click to expand...

I suck at writing reviews English, it doesn't come to me naturally
So i'm deleting my review.

Meerkats · Jan 1, 2018

Original Concept: 3
Characters: 3
Plot: 1
Pacing: 3
Setting & Atmosphere: 1
Grammar & Mechanics: 1

Your concept is fine. The prompt is vague enough that you can do as much or as little as you want with it. However the main problem here is that you don't do anything with it, the story ends before it picks up. This could have been fine but with your narrative framing you created a situation where the reader is expecting a certain type of story that will convey a certain amount of information. In this case a humorous story about how much of a bad drunk Albus is. Unfortunately your writing style doesn't fit humour and the story is too short to show us anything that could realisticly cause Albus to never drink again.

In regards to the other categories, there isn't much of a setting to speak of and the text is riddled with spelling and grammar issues that word would have picked out.

A little more effort could have made this a decent read.

Total: 12/30

World · Jan 3, 2018

I could see that the story would be ending soon and I was wondering how you would put everything that might happen in a strip club in those few paragraphs. The answer being "you didn't" was quite a letdown. I'm guessing the deadline rushed up (as they always do) and you had to wrap up before anything good could happen.
In a way, Harry tries to tell the story of how Albus wasn't a stick in the mud, just to show himself being a stick in the mud.

Original Concept - 2/5
Characters - 2/5
Plot - 1/5
Pacing - 1/5
Setting & Atmosphere - 1/5
Grammar & Mechanics - 3/5

10/30

Stealthy · Jan 4, 2018

Original Concept - 1/5

First check: How does this answer the prompt? Poorly. The answer is Dumbledore takes Harry to a strip club. It's unambitious, and the execution is not nearly creative enough to compensate. It's a somewhat unsatisfactory reason as well.
Second check: What about the broader idea behind the entry? N/A. The fic does not have much of a scope beyond answering the prompt, although I guess Dumbledore lamenting Harry's terrible skills with women is an added bit but it fell flat. Doesn't make much sense for Dumbledore of all people to be doing it - even if drunk - but so be it. Getting ahead of ourselves there, though.

Elaboration: Albus goes/takes Harry on an inappropriate adventure is the most obvious answer to the prompt, but that's salvageable if it's done really well or has a twist on it. Neither of those happen. I guess Albus aborting the adventure counts, but that actually makes it worse. Balls up and pull the trigger next time. If that's the concept you're going for, commit to it. Buy Harry a hooker or something.

Characters - 2/5

First check: Do the characters sound/act like their canon counterparts? Dumbledore is a hell no. Even for a drunk Dumbledore. Harry is eh. Voice isn't right.
Second check: If no, does it matter (ex: Is it AU? Is it bending to a genre? Is there aging up or whatever at play?). Drunk!Albus qualifies, but it's not an accurate representation of Drunk!Albus to me.
Third check: Is the characterization good? Not really. Even for a one-shot it's bland.

Elaboration: So yeah, like I said, Dumbledore doesn't make much sense nor is there anything going on to make him make sense. Drunk or not, this is a wildly out of character thing for Albus to do. If he's going to give Harry relationship advice, it's not going to be "let's make a man out of you". It'll be vague advice. If he's drunk it'll be drunk advice and some innuendos. Annoying thing is that I think you kinda get this. Up until Albus says they're going on an adventure, that's more or less how it seems to play out. And Harry felt more like a vessel than a character, and Narrator!Harry wasn't done in a way that compensated. I'm willing to write it off as missteps with the past/future voice blend, though.

If you just committed and went full absurd like Elephants, then you could've pulled off the OOCness like it did. But you didn't, and the fic suffered for it.

Plot - 1/5

First check: How well does the plot service and execute the concept? Not very well. Granted, concept is inherently flawed, but the story was never able to sell it to me.
Second check: Looking broadly, is the plot engaging? Well structured? Good? Nope. It's hardly there. Skipped straight from conflict to resolution. Like, c'mon. That's story 101 shit.
Third check: Let's talk about the meat of the story. How well did the plot play out? Eh. It wasn't really funny despite sometimes trying to be. Lead-in was okay but then the rest was bleh.

Elaboration: Plots have a beginning, middle, and an end. You forgot about the middle, and the end wasn't any good either. The anticlimax was a bad call to begin with, and you didn't pull it off. Overall a disappointment.

Pacing - 1/5

First check: Could I make it through this in one sitting easily? Yes, but the short length guaranteed it.
Second check: Is there anywhere that overly dawdles? Anywhere that is overly rushed? Yes. The ending goes by in a fucking whirlwind to the point where on my first pass I though I skipped a paragraph or several. But no, it was actually a rush job.

Elaboration: Yes, just because the limit is 10k words it doesn't mean you should feel obligated to use all of them. You should still feel obligated to make use of the space you have. I'm willing to bet that you plowed through the ending just to get the thing finished, and it suffered accordingly.

Setting & Atmosphere - 2/5

First check: Does the story provide descriptions as necessary? Kinda. Only in the first part of the story. Barely in the second half.
Second check: Do the descriptions set the scene? Hand in hand with the above. Some touches at the start, and not even really bothered with in the second location.
Third check: If there are canon places, do I feel like I'm there? Only by virtue of my own imagination and concept of Dumbledore's office. And I guess the fact that Dumbledore's there.

Elaboration: The password change was a nice touch. Good job there. You do okay at the beginning, but it's like you didn't give a shit about this category after the first chunk of the entry. That's a major problem. We're all very familiar with Hogwarts; nobody needs to write poetry about it beyond getting the atmosphere going and putting the reader in the right mood. Then you leave Hogwarts to somewhere that's not a familiar location, and you do fuck all to establish it. There's really nothing to make the second setting feel different than the first, and that's a failure. Of course, we're there for all of ten seconds so...

Grammar & Mechanics - 2/5

First check: Does the author have a solid grasp on the English language? Is this readable? Yes. Congrats, you get more than a 1 in this category.
Second check: How does it do on typos? Does it clearly need another editing pass? Boy does it. A few typos, a whole lot of comma abuse, overwording, etc. Really needed a beta to go through with hedge clippers.
Third check: More broadly, how's the prose? Bland. Gonna include the perspective here, which in this case is a first person retrospective. I think it caused some problems. Needed to commit more fully to it to get a consistent voice.

Elaboration: Not gonna go full grammarian and whatnot here. A fresh set of eyes (either yours after a period of time, or somebody else's) should cover most of that. The style is a more deep set issue. Two examples:

“Harry, would you like a glass?” That was only one of the things that threw me off, the first being him offering me a drink of what was surely Firewhiskey." Does this qualify as a long-winded tautology? 'Dumbledore offered me alcohol, which threw me off, because he offered me alcohol'. Absurdly redundant. It's like you're focusing more about the structure of the sentence more than the substance.

"It was like what I’d imagine talking to a homosexual great-great-uncle about girls would feel like". No shit Harry, that's because you are talking to your homosexual great-great-uncle about girls. This is a useless sentence. 'It was like what I'd imagine' is also awkward phrasing and more overwording.

Also, you time your paragraph breaks poorly. It's terrible for the flow.

Overall: 9/30

This is an entry that was probably procrastinated on until it was rushed for the deadline and never got anything but a cursory editing pass. Add in a flawed and failed concept and we have a subpar entry. Author needs practice and some good betas if they want to make use of the glimmers of potential hidden in here.

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Hi there, Guest

Dec 2017 - Submission #1

Xiph0 Yoda Admin

Halt 1/3 of the Note Bros. Moderator

Jarizok Auror DLP Supporter

Eimim First Year

BTT Viol̀e͜n̛t͝ D̶e͡li͡g҉h̛t҉s̀ ~ Prestige ~

ScottPress The Horny Sovereign –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

Zombie Black Philip Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐

Sorrows Queen of the Flamingos Moderator

Anarchy Half-Blood Prince DLP Supporter

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