Fandom-Specific Plot/Literature

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    Examples of Fandom-Specific Plots based on Literature include:

    Harry Potter

    Harry Potter fandom has such an enormous fanfiction community, with so many common plotlines, that it's difficult to keep count:

    • Harry/Draco stories invented the Male!Veela Fic. May be stretched to apply to other pairings.
    • Harry is sorted into Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor. Slytherin is by far the most common. Expect Draco to be Harry's best friend while most of the Gryffindors, especially Ron, are dumb jocks at best and outright evil at worst.
    • Hermione finds out that she's an adopted pure-blood and, of course, drops her adoptive family like a hot potato in favour of the new, improved version. Her new family will invariably be aristocratic and on the same social plane as the Malfoys, often resulting in her befriending Draco if not romancing him. Her newfound wealth, especially the clothing, will be described in loving detail. She will get a complete personality transplant, sometimes with the added feature of an Unnecessary Makeover, causing her to abandon her old friends and more critical reviewers to wonder why the author didn't just use an Original Character.
      • If she's shipped with Draco, there's a good chance it's the result of a marriage contract.
      • Occasionally she's revealed to be Draco's twin sister, in which case, she's usually paired with Blaise Zabini.
      • Set up and then subverted in a subplot of Benefits of Old Laws, where Hermione discovers that her family descends from a squib branch of the Lestranges -- and she and her parents are promptly welcomed back into the fold because Voldemort (rendered painfully sane by an unexpected side effect of his resurrection) has decided to keep the "preserve Wizarding traditions and culture" part of his agenda while disposing of the "kill everyone who disagrees" part, and is encouraging his followers to repatriate squib lines which have begun manifesting magic again. With the canon Lestranges effectively disinherited because they can't adapt to the new strategy, Hermione becomes the Lestrange heir, which other than lessons on etiquette and Wizarding politics (and gaining a grand-uncle) has little real effect on her.
    • The gang, in whole or in part, time-travels to the time of the Marauders.
      • Sometimes, they go back to read the seven Harry Potter books to them (excluding Peter). Basically a MST being performed by the Marauders of the original Potter books as though they were fiction for the Marauders.
        • Oh, and a good number of the Marauder MST fics tend to assume that Marauders are still at Hogwarts and yet somehow find nothing at all odd about more modern things that the books talk about. Not that are many, admittedly...
      • Stories in which Hermione alone is sent back in time and later falling to fall in love with Remus or Sirius or Snape used to be very popular circa 2005 to early 2007, but have since all but vanished. (It's not a bad concept, as long as that's not all that happens. Hell, Voldemort had been working on his power base for almost thirty years by the Marauder Era.)
        • Similarly, a (usually) female character is sent back in time to redeem Tom Riddle with sex. This probably started as a way for Tom/Ginny shippers to get around the whole him-being-future-Voldemort thing, but now it's done almost as often with Hermione. And, of course, it was also done with a certain Mary Sue in My Immortal.
        • A variant was also done in Child of Grace, except that the author skipped the sex and just had the memory Riddle be a nice guy all along, in no way responsible for the evil actions of his present self (ignoring things like by the time he made the journal he had already released the Basilisk).
    • In response to the medical finding that Purebloods have become so inbred that they have reduced fertility rates and/or are likely to give birth to Squibs, the Ministry of Magic establishes a Marriage Law which forces Muggleborns (and sometimes half-bloods) to marry pure-bloods. Often the law is actually a ploy enacted by Voldemort supporters/sympathisers still in power to punish or neutralise the heroes of the second Voldemort uprising. Almost always ends up pairing Hermione with Snape (since the concept originated as a fanfic-writing challenge on a Snape/Hermione mailing list), but sometimes includes other pairings. Since then, Draco has become the most common.
      • Despite Snape being a half-blood, prior to Half Blood Prince it wouldn't have been entirely unreasonable, given Snape's former Death Eater status, to assume he was a pureblood. The Marriage Law theme originated during that time period and just kept going after being Jossed.
      • If he isn't ignored entirely, addressing how Hermione already marries a pureblood has its own common explanations, either Ron insisting that she pump out endless babies just like his mother, Ron suddenly turning evil, or "Ron marrying Hermione to protect her from Draco's marriage contract would make the Malfoys REALLY MAD! Only Snape is strong enough to protect her!"... which doesn't really make any sense. Harry, being not technically Pureblood, is not an option. Sometimes worse options are brought up as possibilities.
      • Some Marriage Law fics state that partners will be chosen by the government. One fic even included a statute that the marriage must be proven consummated within a certain window of time.
      • This scenario often involves Hermione's extensive use of the Time Turner in book three making her half-a-year or more older, to make her old enough to qualify for being forced into marriage. (Forgetting/Ignoring that this is kind-of cancelled out by the time she spent petrified in Chamber of Secrets, and that she was only allowed to use it to attend classes that clashed with others (Divination and Muggle Studies), which adds up to two weeks at most.)
    • Harry has a twin, and it's he or she who is the real Boy/Girl-Who-Lived.
      • Alternately, the twin is hailed as the X-Who-Lived, while Harry is both the real Boy-Who-Lived and ignored.
      • A For Want of a Nail outcome, where Neville Longbottom is the Boy-Who-Lived, is explicitly mentioned by Dumbledore and Harry at one point hypothesizes what such a world would be like, practically screaming to be used.
    • A distant (in terms of blood or just geography) relative discovers his or her connection to Harry, and rescues/adopts/comes to the aid of Harry. Again, fodder for crossovers.
    • Harry is framed for some horrendous crime and is imprisoned in Azkaban. Eventually he is either cleared or escapes, but not before the experience grants him an immense powerup, which he mostly uses to enact his revenge on those who betrayed or framed him, as well as defeat Voldemort (if the two aren't one and the same). All of his friends will turn on him, including Sirius, and often one of them will kill Hedwig and rip up his photo album, then laugh about it afterwards. (In other words, The Count of Monte Cristo with Harry Potter characters!) They're almost always awful.
      • At least one such story, Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Wizards by Corwalch, acknowledges this by having Harry very knowingly take "Edmund Cristo" and "Liam Dantes" as aliases after his release.
    • After Voldemort wins (or worse, after a Pyrrhic Victory over Voldemort that leaves Wizarding England a depopulated wasteland), Harry goes back in time in some way to his school days so that he can use his foreknowledge to craft a better outcome. Occasionally a different character will do so.
      • A Very Potter Sequel has a kind of reversed version of this, with the bad guys trying this to undo the happy ending.
    • The "Dursleys abuse Harry" fanfic. In these fanfics, Harry's Hilariously Abusive Childhood is treated much more seriously. Expect rape to occur. Other common features of these fanfics:
      • This new level of abuse will not be retconned as having been happening all along. Instead, it will start when Harry is a grown teenager with wizard friends and a supposedly murderous godfather. Usually, Harry arrives back at Privet Drive for the summer and, for whatever reason, the Dursleys immediately decide to start beating/raping him. Often the catalyst is Moody's threats at the end of the fifth book, with Vernon developing a "they can't tell me what to do" attitude in response. Expect the story to begin In Medias Res, with a beaten Harry thinking back on how different the Dursleys have been this summer.
      • Vernon is entirely responsible for the abuse. Petunia and Dudley will be mentioned so little you'd think Vernon and Harry were the only people living in the house. If Petunia and Dudley do participate in the abuse, they'll essentially be Vernon's minions. Alternatively, Petunia has a Heel Face Turn.
      • Harry is given an impossible list of chores, which is he beaten/raped for failing to complete.
      • Harry is once again forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs.
      • Vernon brutally kills Hedwig so Harry can't contact the wizarding world for help.
      • Harry is rescued by someone, usually Snape. Thus, the abuse may be setup for a Hurt/Comfort Fic. Alternatively, it's setup for an evil!Dumbledore fanfic.
    • Hermione and Draco are Head Boy and Head Girl in their Seventh Year, which means that .
      • The "Head Boy and Girl's private quarters" plot device, where they have to share a suite of rooms, providing lots of forced interaction to fuel sexual tension. Used for Seventh Year Harry/Hermione and Ron/Hermione fics, Hermione/Draco Foe Yay, and even fics with a Mary Sue or Gary Stu paired with Harry, Ron, Hermione or Draco, and originated with the once-popular Percy/Penelope ship.
      • Most oddly, this is so codified that it seems to have been forgotten that the Head Boy and Girl are actually supposed to be top students. Instead, fanfiction makes it look like the selection of Head Boy and Girl is completely random. No one ever even wonders any more "How did Draco Malfoy get to be Head Boy?"
      • This device also turns up a lot in Lily/James fics as well as fics set in the Next Generation (usually with Rose/Scorpius).
    • The Yule Ball is restaged despite there being no Triwizard Tournament, sometimes with a Hand Wave and sometimes without. Hilarity and romantic hijinks ensue. Oh-so common before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—even The Draco Trilogy used it at one point. Apparently, it took the release of Phoenix for fanfic writers to finally grasp that the Yule Ball is not something that happens every year. Oddly, Potter Puppet Pals used this years after Phoenix when Snape writes in his diary about being at the Yule Ball with Lily Evans, although he was describing a dream he had had.
    • Harry and Ginny (or Harry and Hermione, or Harry, Hermione and Ginny, or Harry and Luna, or Harry/Anyone, or Harry/Everyone) discover they have a Soul Bond linking their hearts in eternal Twoo Wuv and their magical cores in eternal Badass.
    • There's a school class which pairs the characters to learn how to be grown-ups, normally by making them live together as a married couple in the Room of Requirement, take care of a magically created baby, and (of course) fall in love. Because putting hormonally fuelled teenagers together, and making a child you plan to delete in a couple of months, isn't morally wrong. At all.
    • Hermione, Ginny or a Mary Sue becomes a maid in Malfoy Manor. Where Draco lives. Do you see where this is going?
    • Turns out the Marauders weren't the real pranksters of Hogwarts. Oh no, it was Lily and her band of female friends, who were Just As Good As The Guys If Not Better. Lily joyfully out-pranking the Marauders would seem to contradict the fact that she canonically considered their pranks cruel, but that has not dissuaded anyone.
      • Lily's band of female friends appears a lot in the Marauder-era fics anyway, pranksters or not, at least in the Finnish Harry Potter fandom. Usually, the group includes a beautiful, loud, extremely popular girl and a more soft-spoken, very smart girl, who are paired to Sirius and Remus respectively.
        • Before Order of the Phoenix revealed more about Arabella Figg she was often portrayed as Lily's best friend and Sirius's love interest.
    • Harry's real father is Severus Snape, not James Potter (despite canon repeatedly saying that Harry looks almost exactly like his father did at the same age. Sometimes this is Handwaved, more often it's just ignored.)
      • Funny thing about this one. Like the Marriage Law fic, it was initially popularized by a challenge. These fics are often called Severitus fics, after the Severitus Challenge, which was issued in 2001 by, you guessed it, Severitus. The original constraints of the challenge called for Harry's appearance to gradually change to resemble Snape's over the course of the fic, with the idea being that his original appearance was the result of a potion/glamour/whatever. (They also called for Remus to come back to Hogwarts at some point.) The challenge was extremely popular, and the name stuck even after people started to drop some of the requirements. (Sometimes people call just plain old "Snape is Harry's father" fics "Sevitus" fics.)
    • For some reason, the characters decide to play the inane children's game Truth Or Dare. Or alternatively Strip Poker. The results are pretty much the same either way.
    • One of the male characters is temporarily/permanently turned into a girl. Expect no explanation for why re-applying the same spell wouldn't change him/her back. Often leads to the literary equivalent of a Shopping Montage after which the story turns into a Dead Fic since the writer inevitably didn't have much of an idea beyond "let's make Harry/Ron/Draco/Sirius/the giant squid a girl!" Alternatively this is done to pair him with another male character without it being a Slash Fic.
    • The "Founders Fic" is a whole Harry Potter sub-genre unto itself. Predictably, depending on the author's house preferences, Gryffindor and Slytherin are either Idiot Hero or The Cape and either Smug Snake or Tall, Dark and Snarky, respectively. Often they're best friends who have a falling-out. Ravenclaw is typically a beautiful Brainy Brunette and sometimes a Rich Bitch. Hufflepuff has Hair of Gold and is a motherly, closer-to-Earth farm-girl type. Several of these things turned out to be canon in one way or another, but they're all older than their respective confirmations in the books.
      • My kingdom for one, just one fic where all four of them are portrayed as scholars who could reasonably found a school.
    • Ron the Death Eater, a situation so common it became the Trope Namer for the entire general phenomenon: Ron is so jealous and resentful of Harry that he spontaneously does a Face Heel Turn. Often a result of Harry/Hermione shippers wanting Ron to Die for Our Ship. Alternately Ginny's been dosing the pair with Love Potion to steal Harry's money and fame. Or Hermione's the one doing it.
    • Most of the Tom/Ginny fics written by shippers who don't mind the extreme age difference between the two or that Ginny is barely 12 can be summed up as "Tom Riddle has sex with Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets before Harry shows up".
      • It's not so much the extreme age difference as the fact that Ginny is barely 12. (And the myriad other ways the 'relationship' would be wrong even if she was older.)
    • Harry and/or Hermione go to Australia to retrieve Hermione's memory-wiped parents and complications arise.
    • No one starts Hogwarts at the age of eleven anymore. Instead, original characters seem to stop by Hogwarts just for their final year so they'll be old enough for teen romances (and, presumably, so they'll be closer in age to the author). Sometimes there is a Hand Wave, often along the lines of she already knows everything she needs to.
    • Usually set post-Order of the Phoenix, Harry stays over at Hermione's house for the summer and notices that she is getting Curves in All the Right Places, and they fall in love (and usually have sex) with each other very quickly. To make it even clearer that the story is a blatant Harry/Hermione One True Pairing, there will either be another prophecy uttered or that was hidden so The Power Of Their Love will defeat Voldemort, or Ron and/or Ginny's characters being changed or turned evil to remove them as Love Interests.
      • The same basic "Summer of Love after Fifth Year" theme is done quite frequently, with almost every thinkable female character from the series: Ginny, Tonks, Susan Bones, ...
        • And in the case of Tonks, she is usually assigned to be a guard near Harry's house (mainly as an excuse by the author to have her there) and quickly grows sympathetic to his guilt and sadness over Sirius's death. Within the two months before going back to begin his sixth year, they'll have completely fallen in love. The fact that she is six or seven years older than him at this point is often (understandably) brought up by everyone, that is if Harry and Tonks aren't seeing each other in secret.
    • Harry actually didn't save Ginny when he destroyed Riddle's diary. She was actually still evil, but didn't let on. This can go two ways. In the unsympathetic route, this becomes Ginny The Death Eater. And then there's the sympathetic route, which amounts to "Ginny's evil, but that's all right because Evil Is Sexy and now she can be Tom's queen." (The latter type nearly always finds a way to revert Voldie back to his Riddle-era good looks.)
    • Harry discovers his parents' will(s) were never executed (usually because of the machinations of a Manipulative!Dumbledore, and often in the course of receiving his inheritance from Sirius post book five). By various means he corrects this, and becomes filthy rich and a Political Power. (Which is weird, because he's already filthy rich, and he doesn't do anything with it.)
      • Sometimes it will be discovered he gained legal adulthood and hence 'full access' to the vaults (despite him appearing to already have this in the books) and Potter and Black seats on the Wizengamot because he's in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, despite the fact that the Tri-Wiz has included plenty of underaged students before. It's just this time the school administrators rigged a external age line to keep them out.
    • Dumbledore's a Manipulative Bastard setting Harry up as a sacrifice in order to defeat Voldemort (in more extreme cases with Dumbledore planning to take all the credit afterward). But Harry has managed to get emancipated and come into his own, with all the money and political power he needs to thwart both Dumbles and Riddle. In well-done instances, Harry must race to learn who to trust and what he needs to know in order to save himself before Dumbledore's or Voldemort's plans come to fruition; in poorly-written implementations, Harry effortlessly defangs and counters all opposition, leaving them blinking in stupefaction in his wake.
      • This is often combined with "Harry finds his parents' real will" and the "Summer of Love" mentioned above. Expect Harry to end up as "Lord Potter", "Lord Black", or "Lord Potter-Black". In most cases the Weasleys will not be trustworthy, or at least Ginny, Ron and Molly won't be. Expect Harry to end up with Hermione, Luna, or some Slytherin girl that's been mentioned three times in five books. Or all of them at once.
      • In addition to these, Harry sometimes gets a "magical inheritance" that instantly grants him a Superpower Lottery of magical talents and abilities, with no effort involved. Expect him to be a Metamorphmagus like Tonks, an Animagus (almost always a Phoenix), and have several other skills and 'lost' forms of magic that nobody else in the series has, such as a Golden Patronus. In most cases, he has to go to Gringotts to receive it, which crosses over with the 'Harry-Is-Nice-To-Goblins' plot-line. Yes, he is informed of and given his true power and respected by Goblinkind just because he remembered Griphook's name.
      • Also very common in these fics is to have Ron, and often Hermione or Molly (but always Ron) revealed to only have been friends with Harry on Dumbledore's request. The idea of an eleven year old child pulling off this kind of long-term deception is laughable, and if Hermione is included it reaches the far side of the Xanatos Roulette, given how her actual friendship with Harry began. Finally, it's not uncommon for Dumbledore to be paying Ron (and any others involved) with money embezzled from Harry's own Gringott's account, which would only increase the odds of Harry finding out the truth.
        • Sometimes Manipulative!Dumbledore just plays on Hermione's authority-worship to convince her to "keep him informed -- for Harry's own good, of course". Sometimes Harry will renounce their friendship over it; more often he will forgive her after she realizes just how she's betrayed him and expresses her remorse. (Sometimes Manipulative!Dumbledore wants to sabotage their friendship because she improves his survival chances too much, or is likely to recognize his manipulations for what they are, so he deliberately uses this tactic in order to turn Harry against her when it is "accidentally" revealed.)
      • Played with in A Matter of Law by "YMaxwell39", where Dumbledore has good intentions, but he just can't conceive that the Dursleys could actually be abusive. His actions, while not exactly legal, are sincerely intended for Harry's benefit -- but when combined with this and certain other realities of Harry's life they appear, from the point of view of anyone further along the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism (such as a solicitor), to be a criminal plan to turn Harry into Dumbledore's loyal puppet.
    • The polar opposite of malevolent!Dumbledore is the Dumbledore so consumed by a need to redeem Voldemort and the Death Eaters, turning them "back to the Light", that he will give them infinite "second chances" regardless of the atrocities they commit. For various motives ranging from simple softheartedness to a cold calculation that their bloodlines are needed to keep Wizarding Britain from dying out, he will permit neither battlefield tactics nor criminal penalties that result in enemy death, crippling (fatally so in some cases) the campaign against the Dark Lord. In some of these cases he is willing to sacrifice any number of innocents in the hopes of redeeming a single one of the enemy. Plots involving this Dumbledore usually revolve around Harry (and/or others) trying to work around or undermine his restrictions enough to actually fight effectively.
    • Someone (usually Snape) is turned back into a baby or a small child. He then must be cared for by the other characters or, in some cases, one character in particular. All in an effort to make Snape cuddly.
    • In the course of the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, Gabrielle Delacour bonds to Harry and becomes for all magical and legal purposes his wife. Fortunately, due to the vagaries of Veela biology she is not actually the eight-year-old she appears to be, and shortly thereafter undergoes a perfectly normal delayed and accelerated puberty that leaves her physically at her real age of 14 or so. Can be found in both Harry/Gabrielle shipping stories and Harry/Harem stories.
    • Harry discovers he is bound by one or more marriage contracts signed before his birth or in his infancy, requiring him to marry a girl (or girls) he barely knows.
    • Harry's simple courtesies to the goblins of Gringott's mark him as uniquely different from the racist bastards that make up the rest of the Wizarding World, and they throw all their military and economic power behind him.
    • Matchmaker!Dumbledore. Wise, old Dumbledore understands how right the author's One True Pairing is and becomes a Shipper on Deck, dropping irrelevant concerns like killing Voldemort. After all, if Dumbledore says Draco and Ginny should be together, then obviously it must be true, right? Naturally, never combined with Manipulative!Dumbledore because manipulation which brings about the author's OTP is obviously good. Often leads to the "Head Boy and Girl's private quarters" plot.
    • In "Sirius lives/is saved" fics, he and Harry will almost certainly team up to become gentlemen thieves who steal from the Death Eaters and purity-obsessed families to better the wizarding world... and go from wealthy to more money than a god. Often combined with the Harem fics.
    • During the Three Year Summer, it was common to see Arabella Figg turn up as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, typically with a portrayal as the most badass Cool Old Lady ever. After Order of the Phoenix established she was a Muggle Born of Mages, this plot died a quick death.
    • There's a sect of uber-powerful magical people who basically are to wizards what wizards are to Muggles. They're called Magids in The Draco Trilogy, the Strega in Pawn to Queen, and the Druids in The Girl Who Lived, but it's all the same basic idea. The Strega and the Druids are especially similar, sharing Can't Argue with Elves and Author Filibuster tendencies.
      • In a growing number of fics, these uber-wizards are the witches and warlocks of Bewitched. If the story features a Manipulative!Dumbledore, expect him to still think he can outmaneuver and out-think immortal godlike magic-users who've seen generations of his kind come and go.
    • One of the characters (usually Harry or Draco or Hermione) become an animagus or are transfigured into an animal, and hide in plain sight as another character's pet (usually Harry or Draco or Hermione).
    • The "what if Voldemort won?" fic. This leads to a Dark Fic set in the bleak Dystopia he has created, but all too often it's just an excuse to set up a kinky Lemon in which Hermione is forced to be Draco's Sex Slave or somesuch. Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the non-lemon versions tend to instead take place during that book when Voldemort did win for certain values of the term, but not permanently.
    • Diary fics where the diary writes back, like Tom Riddle's. Sometimes this is for a villain's own nefarious purposes, like it was in the one canon example, but sometimes they rely on the premise that these diaries are as normal in the wizarding world as portraits that talk.
      • Imagine the advertising for that. 'Hi there, parents. I'd like to put my memories in this book, to live under your daughter's pillow and have her tell me all her secrets, and I'd advise her what to do!'
    • A common one is to introduce a Mary Sue with an additional prophecy. This prophecy usually concerns whether Draco sides with Voldemort or Dumbledore, how only she can guide him in this choice, and how Harry's prophecy is entirely dependent on this one. Expect the prophecy to only use vague terms about "light" and "dark" and animal imagery (Draco is usually the "Dragon," while the Mary Sue is normally the "Phoenix"), despite the fact that the original prophecy didn't bother with obscuring imagery.
    • God!Potter is very common. The general outline usually has Harry returning for his next year at Hogwarts after being trained by Elves/Demons/Time Lords and already having powers far more advanced than anyone in the school. Staples include limitless shapeshifting, wandless/wordless magic, "almost Unforgivable" curses, fluency in a secret language and floating runes. They almost always follow the plot of a canon book, but Harry solves each problem with his new powers while hiding his real potential.
    • Salazar Slytherin is Sealed Evil in a Can and the can gets opened. This usually occurs when a fanfic takes place after the defeat of Voldemort and the author needs a new Big Bad. Salazar Slytherin in these fics is often just Voldemort with a different name, right down to recruiting former Death Eaters as his followers. The Draco Trilogy is probably the Trope Codifier or even the Trope Maker for this plot. Hogwarts Exposed used it too.
    • There's quite a few fics where the Hogwarts students take a mandatory trip to the U.S. Sometimes they're visiting a wizarding school in the States, and other times it's just a plain old Muggle school.
    • "Everywhere Else Is Full": A common trope in both the original books and fan fiction. Whoever gets top dibs on Hogwarts Express compartments, it's not main characters. Inevitably, Everywhere Else Is Full, so they'll have to share a compartment with Plot Relevant Character. In the original series, this trope is used to introduce Ron in the first book, Lupin in the third book, and Luna in the fifth book. The exact words "everywhere else is full" are actually spoken by Ron in the first book/movie and by Hermione in the third movie (not the book version). In the world of fan fiction, it's pretty much reached the level of Share Phrase.
    • "Magical Maturity" -- similar to the "overnight Veela maturity" fics mentioned above, this plot postulates that at some point during puberty witches and wizards undergo a short magical "growth spurt" that results in their transition from child levels of magic to their full adult magical power. This process is frequently painful and/or similar to a severe fever, and the length and intensity of one's magical maturity is directly proportional to their power levels afterward. Harry invariably undergoes one of heretofore unseen duration and severity, resulting in Godlike!Potter when he recovers. Sometimes his maturity is so extended and painful that he has to be brought out of it prematurely, lest his own phenomenal cosmic power kill him before it can finish manifesting.
    • After defeating Voldemort and settling in for his well-deserved happily ever after, Harry is unceremoniously (and unwillingly) yanked out of his world and dropped into another by their versions of Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry or some combination of the three. In the world in which he's arrived, things are going much worse than they did in his (usually-canon) timeline: their local Harry is dead, grievously injured, or never existed at all, and Voldemort is far closer to complete triumph than he got in Harry's native timeline. In complete desperation, his summoners threw a line at random into the multiverse to hook and pull in a hero who could help them. For extra Bonus Points, they do this knowing that their hero would never be able to return to his home. Harry is not usually pleased about this, but helps them anyway.
    • For a while there were a spate of "conversion" fics written by fundamentalist Christian fans of Harry Potter who had to work out the conflict between their belief system and their favorite literature. In these stories, usually written in a fairly ham-handed way, Harry would find Jesus and give up "witchcraft".

    Other works

    • The Sherlock Holmes fandom is peculiarly fond of giving the detective hypothermia.
    • The Dresden Files fandom is really into Gender Bender, particularly of Harry, in an attempt to offset (or at least explore) his sexist tendencies.
      • Another massive trend is the Sex Kitten Winter Knight!Harry, taking place in some amorphous time after Harry's become the Winter Knight. They, similarly, offset or explore Harry's canon attitudes on sex (I.E., not having sex with a new partner while still trying to save an old one, not having sex with monsters trying to eat or manipulate you, and not having sex with minors), which the fandom often spins as repressed or even misogynistic. Sense a trend here?
    • The Maximum Ride fandom seems to really like High School AU stories. Understandable, considering what they have to go through on a constant basis in canon, not understandable in that the one time they actually DID go to school, it didn't end well for them.
    • Percy Jackson and The Olympians: Half-blood goes to camp. Half-blood gets amazing powers. Half-blood saves world. Simmer for five minutes. Serves thousands.
    • A Series of Unfortunate Events: the Baudelaires are sent to live with a new guardian, usually an Original Character, although crossovers exist.
    • Writers for The Silmarillion, specifically Maedhros/Fingon shippers, are practically obligated to write hurt/comfort fic based on Fingon's rescue of Maedhros from Thangorodrim. In all fairness, it's pretty much the last moment in the book for them which isn't utterly tragic.
    • If you happen to be a fanfic writer for Children of Hurin, it's almost obligatory to compose a Beleg/Turin hurt/comfort fic at some point in your career. Somewhat Justified, though, with canon lines like this one:

    Then at the egging of Androg they left Beleg tied to a tree without food or water... but he said no more to them. When two days and nights had passed in this way they had grown angry and fearful, and most were now ready to slay the Elf. As night drew down they were all gathered about him, and Ulrad brought a brand... but at that moment Turin returned... and he saw the haggard face of Beleg in the light of the brand. Then he was stricken as with a shaft, and tears long unshed filled his eyes... "Beleg, Beleg!", he cried... at once he cut the bonds from his friend, and Beleg fell forward into his arms... At first he gave heed only to Beleg, and tended him with what skill he had.

    • The Lord of the Rings, because it's more accessible than the above, has far too many Tenth Walker fics, to the point that they were already being parodied almost a decade ago.
      • Also, fics featuring Faramir or Legolas being abused by their respective fathers are ridiculously common.
    • The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Nathaniel comes back to life and/or is in love with Bartimaeus a lot.
    • Good Omens: Poor Crowley gets mistaken for an incubus quite often in fic.
    • Star Wars Expanded Universe fics where Grand Admiral Thrawn manages to survive his Bodyguard Betrayal are very common.
    • Fics with characters from another fandom put in Lyra's world of the His Dark Materials trilogy, not necessarily involving any characters from the trilogy, so that the author can demonstrate what shapes they think the characters' daemons would be, overlooking the fact that traveling to that dimension will not necessarily cause your daemon to manifest, but being born there will, so it only works as a whole-cloth Alternate Universe. Not the same as Common Crossover, because any fandom can be plugged into this scenario.
    • Roughly 50% of Narnia fanfiction that doesn't feature a Mary Sue will tackle the so-called "Problem of Susan," either making her out to be The Woobie that got screwed over by Aslan and everyone else, or having her whole family killed in a train crash causes her to realize the Error of Her Ways.
    • Tamora Pierce fandom has produced a truly astonishing number of Alanna-goes-to-the-convent fics (in canon, Alanna hated the idea of going to the convent so much that she disguised herself as a boy and learnt how to be a knight instead). Their main purpose seems to be to get her together with Prince Jon, who she dumped in canon.
    • The Hunger Games has an awful lot of 'Random OC who may or may not be a Mary Sue ends up getting reaped'. Some better writers will play with this by not having the character actually win, but as there are only two possible plot permutations the entire thing ends up horrifically overused.
      • And of course there's plenty of Alternate Universe Fics that ask "What if Rue/Thresh/Cato/Clove/Foxface/Marvel/Glimmer/Boy From District 7/etc. had won?" and explore the rest of the trilogy from that character's point of view (or take the events post 74th Hunger Games in a completely different direction).
    • A lot of Darkest Powers fanfiction features werewolf Derek and necromancer Chloe realizing that they are mates. In canon, the only mention of them being mates was made by Liam, who was taunting them. Also, in the main series, the werewolves do have mates... but it's nothing as huge, compelling, or life-changing as it's often made out to be in the DP fanfics. Rather, the only time it's treated as a somewhat big thing is in Personal Demon, when Karl attempts to explain to Hope that the reason he left her is because he was terrified by how completely attracted to her he was (and still is).
    • Warrior Cats: A Clan kit has a prophecy about them. They get apprenticed. They end up fulfilling the prophecy and often become Clan leader at some point.
    • Is it a Chinese web novel with a Peggy Sue plot about a poor schmuck saddled with a system and the mission of repair a terrible book as a tertiary character/starter villain/villan sidekick? Prepare for hundred of fics recycling the premise to put the same schmuck to repair books in other genres (but with the same cast of the original novel), repair fanfic versions of the original plots, repair other books with similar premises, and ocasionally exchanging the rival or the love interest and the protagonist's situations. The internet fandom for The Scum Villain Self-saving System suffers specially from this, but other novels in the genre tend to have their doses of it too.


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