When I finished year 13 last May we had half day in the hall where we sat around ate cake and chatted. Then we left and basically everyone went clubbing that evening. However, that last part obviously wasn't organised by the school.

Proms however, are definitely being adopted as every school in the area that I lived had both a year 11 and year 13 prom. (I'm not sure how long this has been going on for thought, it's probably not new.)

 

I don't think "graduate" is an American only term. Sure, British schools don't have the ceremonies, but "graduate" could still be used to describe the time when you finish school. JK Rowling also thought about including a graduation ceremony.

 

Old english? It's still used now.

When Harry Potter first came out, my dad was amused at the idea that Rowling was calling all of her readers 'mugs' in the sense of rubes or easily fooled idiots.

 

Probably already mentioned: "Manipulative!Dumbledore" with the usual settings of Harry suddenly discovering he has been lied to and manipulated every single moment of his life until now, vowing to take revenge on Dumbledore. This can be achieved by going to Gringotts and becoming best buds with the goblins while discovering some loophole to grant him the status of an adult or Lord Potter (-Black-Gryffindor-Peverell). The author then conveniently forgets about any competency regarding Dumbledore and Harry beats the shit out of him. Literally.

How to spot one of those stories: Manipulative!Dumbledore is written in the description, sometimes even Dumbledore bashing is mentioned, then some meaningless sentences about freedom and revenge. Story also has a couple of thousand reviews/follows/favorites because the general community somehow loves this kind of garbage.

 

Blatant Voldemort disrespect by people who would canonically piss their pants if he were to appear before them. Tonks with her "Dark Wanker" is a prime offender.

 

Most likely, that type of understanding would be a take-off on Muggletonian, which was a religious cult of the 1600s. While the cult itself really doesn't match "Muggles," a link still might exist according to this blog:

 

Stories with pretentious Latin names of which very few readers could make any actual sense, and that is if the Latin in itself is correct. Some good ones (Slide’s stories for example), but most are OoTP-Indie!Harry trash.

 

Foreign titles in general, especially Spanish. Pretentious, all of them.

 

Titles with diacritic letters.

 

Regimen: A systematic course or schedule. i.e. Prescribed medicine, diet, exercise, et cetera.
"She was on a regimen of anti-psychotic meds, but she's still spouting Marxist rhetoric, so we're having her put down."

Regiment: A military unit.
"I've sent an entire regiment of soldiers to round up and give 'free helicopter rides' to people who misuse the word 'flaunt.'"

Regime: A system of rule.
"Under Voldemort's regime, it was a bad time to be a muggleborn."

 

I still want to see a story where Harry is convinced Dumbledore is manipulating him but it's really just the goblins lying and trying to swindle him.

 

A Cadmean Victory had a similar situation, if I remember correctly.

 

"Old goat."

 

I'd enjoy seeing a story where, say around 5th year, Harry pushes back against Dumbledore's machinations.

And Dumbledore is like, 'yeah, you know what, let's fuck up Voldemort together'. Harry is a peer, instead of a pawn. However well-intentioned a pawn.

He and Dumbledore work together, Harry is part of the scheming. Ah I dunno. I think that probably alreasy exists in shades.

I'd call it... A Gentlemen's War or something equally wanky.

 

I want to see one where either Ron or Hermione is mentored by Dumbledore.

Or perhaps one where Snape in a positive student-mentor relationship with Dumbledore. Well, not too positive, because that's a waste of potential, but positive-ish. I think it comes naturally from canon, either after the werewolf incident, or post first-war.

 

To be honest, everytime I see a Manipulative!Dumbledore story, that takes Dumbledore bashing to the extreme, I can't help but think that the author has some kind of control issues in RL and venting off his or her frustrations. I'd like to see a fic with a small twist, in which Harry tries to regain control of his life (without siding with a good Voldemort *cough* Well Groomed Mind *cough*), but Dumbledore is just too competent and wins.

 

I know adhering to stations of canon is hated universally around here, but I need to vent a little - it always amazes how contrived shit can be when authors need to hit a point in Canon.

Like, just today I was reading a story where Harry traveled to Hogwarts with completely different group - and Ron and Herman still found their way there! And what's more, overly-mature!Herman still spent a whole fucking day crying in the fucking bathroom over being hurt by having no fucking friends, even though author expressly mentioned several girls stopping by to make sure she's okay, just for that sweet sweet bonding scene over a dead troll in the fucking bathroom.

Fuck off.

 

Is Herman a genderbent!Hermione?

 

@Download - nah, it's fanons unironically cleverest witch of her age, who's also very pretty, and Harry's actual best friend, even though her dialogue mostly consists of "demanding" and ridiculing.

I think I got the hateful "Herman" from DLP actually.

 

Focus on too many individuals, or filling up with trash.

In the Pokemon world, you can have up to six pokemon with you. Some writers add fanon to this, so you can have more (but only use six at once), or you can have licenses for more if you do a different job, or say that six is only a technical limit due to time/food budgeting, rather than a legal one.

It's rare, but I have seen Pokemon fics where the MC decides they want to fill out their team early on. And, I guess it kind of makes sense, in that having a team of just your starter until you get something decent means you don't have a safety net if your starter faints. But there's no real need to fill your entire team, and it smacks of a lack of long-term planning. I could understand for trainers who aren't interested in the upper ranks filling their team with Kakuna or Feebas, but most of the time the MC has higher ambitions than "quit training and get a white-collar job working in insurance".

Especially if the teams aren't "well-built". It's fine if the trainer wants an all bug team. Stupid, but fine. Or if they want a rounded team covering all weaknesses.

But seeing the MC go "Oh, a really powerful Onix! That'll be helpful for when my Graveller faints!" doesn't make much sense, unless there's no knowledge of types or stats.

And I guess I play Pokemon differently than how I used to - in my early days, I'd attempt to catch everything I didn't already have. Now, I only really tend to catch (at most) a team, HMonkeys, legends, and maybe a few more; because I know I'll never train the rest, and I should save the balls.

This isn't just about pokemon, any story that focuses on a team (I suppose harem fics fit the bill too) can quite easily get overdone.