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* ''Vampire!Cedric'': Cedric Diggory is a vampire -- a plot derived entirely from his film incarnation [[ActorAllusion being played]] by [[Creator/RobertPattinson the same actor]] who played ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'''s Edward Cullen, sparkly vampiric boyfriend extraordinaire. It was just too much for some writers to resist. This connection also spread to a few other characters becoming vampires, like Malfoy or Snape. Or, in the case of ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'', damn near everyone (even though that particular fic predated ''Twilight'').
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* ''Vampire!Cedric'': Cedric Diggory is a vampire -- a plot derived entirely from his film incarnation [[ActorAllusion being played]] by [[Creator/RobertPattinson the same actor]] who played ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'''s ''Film/{{Twilight}}'''s Edward Cullen, sparkly vampiric boyfriend extraordinaire. It was just too much for some writers to resist. This connection also spread to a few other characters becoming vampires, like Malfoy or Snape. Or, in the case of ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'', damn near everyone (even though that particular fic predated ''Twilight'').
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Trope was cut/disambiguated due to cleanup
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Compare DiseaseByAnyOtherName (the audience knows the disease but not the characters); TheTopicOfCancer and TragicAIDSStory (exploring the tension and awkwardness of bringing up those specific diseases); SecretlyDying; NeverSayDie; VictorianNovelDisease; DelicateAndSickly; LittlestCancerPatient; AmbiguousDisorder; GoodVictimsBadVictims; and TheScottishTrope (the means by which characters avoid saying a specific name). Contrast IncurableCoughOfDeath and SoapOperaDisease, where the illness's symptoms are [[JustForFun ill]]-defined and vague just to ensure that they're convenient to the plot.
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Compare DiseaseByAnyOtherName (the audience knows the disease but not the characters); TheTopicOfCancer and TragicAIDSStory (exploring the tension and awkwardness of bringing up those specific diseases); SecretlyDying; NeverSayDie; VictorianNovelDisease; DelicateAndSickly; LittlestCancerPatient; AmbiguousDisorder; GoodVictimsBadVictims; and TheScottishTrope (the means by which characters avoid saying a specific name). Contrast IncurableCoughOfDeath and SoapOperaDisease, where the illness's symptoms are [[JustForFun ill]]-defined and vague just to ensure that they're convenient to the plot.
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** ''Website/TheBeaverton'', the Canadian version. It has a particular focus on Canadian culture and politics, and it's quick to pander to [[CanadaEh Canadian stereotypes]].
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** ''Website/TheBeaverton'', the Canadian version. It has a particular focus on Canadian culture and politics, and it's quick to pander to [[CanadaEh [[MooseAndMapleSyrup Canadian stereotypes]].
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* ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'', a pioneering satirical show that lampooned current events in its sketches. Made in UsefulNotes/TheSixties, its style of political satire was totally unknown and revolutionary, leading to many viewer complaints, even though [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it was fairly tame by our standards]]. The British original (1962-63) and the American remake (1964-65) were both fronted by Creator/DavidFrost.
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* ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'', a pioneering satirical show that lampooned current events in its sketches. Made in UsefulNotes/TheSixties, its style of political satire was totally unknown and revolutionary, leading to many viewer complaints, even though [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it was fairly tame by our standards]].standards. The British original (1962-63) and the American remake (1964-65) were both fronted by Creator/DavidFrost.
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* ''Ginny's Still Evil'': Harry doesn't actually save Ginny when he destroys Riddle's diary -- she's still got the evil in her. This can go two ways -- either Ginny [[RonTheDeathEater turns on Harry]] (and separates him from his ''actual'' LoveInterest), or she's treated sympathetically because EvilIsSexy. When combined with the above plot, it essentially turns her into "[[WeCanRuleTogether Tom Riddle's queen]]", with Voldemort magically reverting to his [[DracoInLeatherPants Riddle-era good looks]].
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* ''Ginny's Still Evil'': Harry doesn't actually save Ginny when he destroys Riddle's diary -- she's still got the evil in her. This can go two ways -- either Ginny [[RonTheDeathEater turns on Harry]] (and separates him from his ''actual'' LoveInterest), or she's treated sympathetically because EvilIsSexy.she's hot. When combined with the above plot, it essentially turns her into "[[WeCanRuleTogether Tom Riddle's queen]]", with Voldemort magically reverting to his [[DracoInLeatherPants Riddle-era good looks]].
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Cut pages.
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See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
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See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
Fox News Channel.
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* ''Crossballs'' was a short-lived Creator/ComedyCentral parody of a political debate show, usually pitting actual experts against a revolving cast of comedians. The name was a {{portmanteau}} of the former Creator/{{CNN}} debate show ''Crossfire''[[note]]which was canceled two weeks after Creator/JonStewart, host of ''Series/TheDailyShow'', went on the program and excorciated the hosts for their unprofessional and needlessly hostile approach to political debate[[/note]] and Creator/{{MSNBC}}'s ''Hardball''.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on the Creator/FoxNewsChannel -- a channel that's long been a target of ''other'' news parodies. Fox News had tried to hit back for years, and its first offering, ''The Half-Hour News Hour'', only lasted a few months before being unceremoniously canceled. ''Red Eye'' was much more successful and became one of Fox News's top-rated shows. It has a reputation for absurdism and being somewhere between a news parody, "faux news", and a fake pundit show -- think ''Series/TheView'' if it had a decidedly CampGay bias. Gutfeld left the show in 2015 to host ''Series/TheGregGutfeldShow'' on the same channel, a straighter TalkShow but with frequent news parody segments.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on the Creator/FoxNewsChannel -- a channel that's long been a target of ''other'' news parodies. Fox News had tried to hit back for years, and its first offering, ''The Half-Hour News Hour'', only lasted a few months before being unceremoniously canceled. ''Red Eye'' was much more successful and became one of Fox News's top-rated shows. It has a reputation for absurdism and being somewhere between a news parody, "faux news", and a fake pundit show -- think ''Series/TheView'' if it had a decidedly CampGay bias. Gutfeld left the show in 2015 to host ''Series/TheGregGutfeldShow'' on the same channel, a straighter TalkShow but with frequent news parody segments.
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* ''Crossballs'' was a short-lived Creator/ComedyCentral parody of a political debate show, usually pitting actual experts against a revolving cast of comedians. The name was a {{portmanteau}} of the former Creator/{{CNN}} CNN debate show ''Crossfire''[[note]]which was canceled two weeks after Creator/JonStewart, host of ''Series/TheDailyShow'', went on the program and excorciated the hosts for their unprofessional and needlessly hostile approach to political debate[[/note]] and Creator/{{MSNBC}}'s MSNBC's ''Hardball''.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on theCreator/FoxNewsChannel Fox News Channel -- a channel that's long been a target of ''other'' news parodies. Fox News had tried to hit back for years, and its first offering, ''The Half-Hour News Hour'', only lasted a few months before being unceremoniously canceled. ''Red Eye'' was much more successful and became one of Fox News's top-rated shows. It has a reputation for absurdism and being somewhere between a news parody, "faux news", and a fake pundit show -- think ''Series/TheView'' if it had a decidedly CampGay bias. Gutfeld left the show in 2015 to host ''Series/TheGregGutfeldShow'' on the same channel, a straighter TalkShow but with frequent news parody segments.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on the
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* ''Series/TheChasersWarOnEverything'' is an UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}n news parody by comedy troupe Creator/TheChaser. While not their only news parody, it's easily the best known. It's most famous for the hosts {{Bavarian Fire Drill}}ing their way through a series of security checks to the entrance of George W. Bush's hotel at the 2007 APEC conference in Sydney. The Chaser's next most famous effort is its Creator/{{CNN}} parody ''Series/{{CNNNN}}''.
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* ''Series/TheChasersWarOnEverything'' is an UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}n news parody by comedy troupe Creator/TheChaser. While not their only news parody, it's easily the best known. It's most famous for the hosts {{Bavarian Fire Drill}}ing their way through a series of security checks to the entrance of George W. Bush's hotel at the 2007 APEC conference in Sydney. The Chaser's next most famous effort is its Creator/{{CNN}} CNN parody ''Series/{{CNNNN}}''.
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Thank you, kind sir! Wasn't aware of (or clear on) that thread; maybe it'll be easier to get people's attention that way. You'll notice that none of the changes on this page have actually been implemented (haha); sometimes it feels like the only way to improve things is unilaterally, but I get that Administrivia/ThisIsAWiki and am always looking for ways to help the community improve the wiki together! ~[=GoldenSeals=]
[[folder:Chalk Outline]]
The Chalk Outline is a commonly seen trope in which the police draw an outline on the ground around a murder victim, usually chalk (but occasionally tape). The idea is that this would allow the police to visualize the crime scene even after the body has been moved.
There's a bit of FridgeLogic to it, though; why is this necessary when you could just take a picture of a crime scene? Indeed, in RealLife the origin of this trope didn't relate to policing so much as journalism; the press could take photographs of the crime scene and give the readers a sense of where everything was lying without actually having to show real bodies (and real {{Gorn}}). And all of this was from around the 1930s, before everyone understood the importance of forensic evidence and learned not to touch the crime scene for any reason. That's not to say that the police never do this today; they might well need to observe the crime scene after the body has been removed for whatever reason. But they generally don't use chalk, being as it is a very granular substance that can easily be blown, washed, or scuffed away and also contaminate the crime scene. Instead they like to use numbered flags or placards that allow investigators to keep track of who's who. The most likely use of chalk might be on a victim who's not actually dead (especially in traffic accidents), so as to preserve the makeup of the crime scene while rushing to get medical care to the victim.
So naturally, given its relative rarity in real life, the Chalk Outline is a very televisually oriented thing, something that just shouts "crime scene" at the audience in a single shot. More often than not, it's {{subverted|Trope}} or {{parodied|Trope}} -- an outline might be in a particularly bizarre location or of a particularly bizarre shape (or multiple shapes, all belonging to the same unfortunate victim). But it's also useful for its original purpose: showing a crime scene without showing bodies, which for whatever reason the work might not want the audience to see.
Not to be confused with ShapesOfDisappearance, where an outline would be use to indicate that someone or something who's supposed to be there has disappeared (and not necessarily because of a crime).
[Note: I'm not convinced it's an UndeadHorseTrope. It's not listed on the latter page, and for it to be an UndeadHorseTrope a parody would have to be so prevalent as to be a cliché, but I don't think it's there yet. Therefore, I removed that particular reference from the description.]
[[/folder]]
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Compare DiseaseByAnyOtherName (the audience knows the disease but not the characters); TheTopicOfCancer and TragicAIDSStory (exploring the tension and awkwardness of bringing up those specific diseases); SecretlyDying; NeverSayDie; VictorianNovelDisease; DelicateAndSickly; LittlestCancerPatient; AmbiguousDisorder; GoodVictimsBadVictims; and TheScottishTrope (the means by which characters avoid saying a specific name). Contrast IncurableCoughOfDeath and SoapOperaDisease, where the illness's symptons are [[JustForFun ill]]-defined and vague just to ensure that they're convenient to the plot.
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Compare DiseaseByAnyOtherName (the audience knows the disease but not the characters); TheTopicOfCancer and TragicAIDSStory (exploring the tension and awkwardness of bringing up those specific diseases); SecretlyDying; NeverSayDie; VictorianNovelDisease; DelicateAndSickly; LittlestCancerPatient; AmbiguousDisorder; GoodVictimsBadVictims; and TheScottishTrope (the means by which characters avoid saying a specific name). Contrast IncurableCoughOfDeath and SoapOperaDisease, where the illness's symptons symptoms are [[JustForFun ill]]-defined and vague just to ensure that they're convenient to the plot.
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* Harry is entitled to a seat on the Wizengamot, if not multiple seats. As the Wizengamot is essentially the highest wizarding court, one would think a seat is earned on merit, but in these fics, the seats are hereditary -- they come with Harry's "lordship", no questions asked. Harry can leverage those seats to make the Ministry of Magic do his bidding. Furthermore, some technicality will allow Harry to be treated as a legal adult while he's still in school -- the most common one is his participation in the Triwizard Tournament, which is technically not open to underage wizards (but had been in the past -- it's just the relaunched tournament that isn't). Meanwhile, Harry can engage in political power games with powerful families like the Malfoys, who will ''also'' own multiple seats in the Wizengamot and be portrayed as corrupt and evil for doing [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality exactly what Harry is doing]]. All of this ignores that the Wizengamot is technically ''subordinate'' to the Ministry of Magic, almost as if the writers are [[WeAllLiveInAmerica mostly Americans]] who expect the court system to be equal with the rest of the government.
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* Harry is entitled to a seat on the Wizengamot, if not multiple seats. As the Wizengamot is essentially the highest wizarding court, one would think a seat is earned on merit, but in these fics, the seats are hereditary -- they come with Harry's "lordship", no questions asked. Harry can leverage those seats to make the Ministry of Magic do his bidding. Furthermore, some technicality will allow Harry to be treated as a legal adult while he's still in school -- the most common one is his participation in the Triwizard Tournament, which is technically not open to underage wizards (but had been in the past -- it's just the relaunched tournament that isn't). Meanwhile, Harry can engage in political power games with powerful families like the Malfoys, who will ''also'' own multiple seats in the Wizengamot and be portrayed as corrupt and evil for doing [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality exactly what Harry is doing]]. All of this ignores that the Wizengamot is technically ''subordinate'' to the Ministry of Magic, almost as if the writers are [[WeAllLiveInAmerica mostly Americans]] Americans who expect the court system to be equal with the rest of the government.
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* An occasional {{inver|tedTrope}}sion sees ''Petunia'' as the abuser and Vernon as the more reasonable one. It has the potential to be more interesting, exploring Petunia's extreme resentment of being TheUnfavorite next to her sister Lily, and giving Vernon a little character development. More often, though, writers use it as an excuse to power Harry up [[MugglesDoItBetter the Muggle way]] by having Vernon sneak him out of the house and teach him martial arts or give him a firearm as a means to defend himself.[[note]]Again, most of these writers [[WeAllLiveInAmerica are Americans]] and neglect to address the strict firearms laws in Britain that would prevent this kind of thing from happening.[[/note]]
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* An occasional {{inver|tedTrope}}sion sees ''Petunia'' as the abuser and Vernon as the more reasonable one. It has the potential to be more interesting, exploring Petunia's extreme resentment of being TheUnfavorite next to her sister Lily, and giving Vernon a little character development. More often, though, writers use it as an excuse to power Harry up [[MugglesDoItBetter the Muggle way]] by having Vernon sneak him out of the house and teach him martial arts or give him a firearm as a means to defend himself.[[note]]Again, most of these writers [[WeAllLiveInAmerica are Americans]] Americans and neglect to address the strict firearms laws in Britain that would prevent this kind of thing from happening.[[/note]]
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* ''The Summer of Love'': Harry spends the summer with a female character, they fall in love very quickly, and CoitusEnsues. It usually happens after ''Order of the Phoenix'', when Harry canonically leaves the Dursleys for good and hangs out at Sirius's old place. The three most popular candidates for said girl are Hermione (but [[FanPreferredCouple of course]]), an OriginalCharacter (but ''[[WishFulfillment of course]]''), or Tonks (who helps Harry get over Sirius's death, never mind that she's seven years older than he is). In some cases, their love will be so strong that [[ThePowerOfLove it will be the key to defeating Voldemort]], and there may even be a second prophecy to that effect. Ron and Ginny will [[RonTheDeathEater turn evil]] in opposition to the relationship, ''especially'' if the girl is Hermione.
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* ''The Summer of Love'': Harry spends the summer with a female character, they fall in love very quickly, and CoitusEnsues.they have sex. It usually happens after ''Order of the Phoenix'', when Harry canonically leaves the Dursleys for good and hangs out at Sirius's old place. The three most popular candidates for said girl are Hermione (but [[FanPreferredCouple of course]]), an OriginalCharacter (but ''[[WishFulfillment of course]]''), or Tonks (who helps Harry get over Sirius's death, never mind that she's seven years older than he is). In some cases, their love will be so strong that [[ThePowerOfLove it will be the key to defeating Voldemort]], and there may even be a second prophecy to that effect. Ron and Ginny will [[RonTheDeathEater turn evil]] in opposition to the relationship, ''especially'' if the girl is Hermione.
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* ''Hermione Redeems the Marauders'': Hermione goes back in time to the Marauders' era and falls in love with one of the characters from then, usually Remus, Sirius, or Snape. It had a brief but torrid run of popularity circa 2005-07, with such fics usually never exploring the implications of Hermione's presence in the era other than for [[CoitusEnsues sexytimes]].
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* ''Hermione Redeems the Marauders'': Hermione goes back in time to the Marauders' era and falls in love with one of the characters from then, usually Remus, Sirius, or Snape. It had a brief but torrid run of popularity circa 2005-07, with such fics usually never exploring the implications of Hermione's presence in the era other than for [[CoitusEnsues sexytimes]].sexytimes.
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* ''A Veela Must MateOrDie'': A Veela has a [[StrangledByTheRedString predermined mate]] (and it's always called a "mate"), and they're magically compelled to seek that person out and... well, [[CoitusEnsues mate]]. Even if they're already in a relationship with someone else. Originally done to pair Harry and Fleur despite Fleur already being married to Bill, it quickly became fodder for "Male Veela Draco" fics, allowing Draco to be paired up with damn near anyone, but often [[FoeYayShipping Hermione]]. In the relatively rare event that the chosen "mate" isn't too keen on such a relationship, the fic will introduce an ancient magical law to force their hand.
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* ''A Veela Must MateOrDie'': A Veela has a [[StrangledByTheRedString predermined mate]] (and it's always called a "mate"), and they're magically compelled to seek that person out and... well, [[CoitusEnsues mate]].mate. Even if they're already in a relationship with someone else. Originally done to pair Harry and Fleur despite Fleur already being married to Bill, it quickly became fodder for "Male Veela Draco" fics, allowing Draco to be paired up with damn near anyone, but often [[FoeYayShipping Hermione]]. In the relatively rare event that the chosen "mate" isn't too keen on such a relationship, the fic will introduce an ancient magical law to force their hand.
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Added DiffLines:
I know that Administrivia/RepairDontRespond is a guideline here, but if you want to make massive changes on the description and examples, it is advisory to ask first over the AskTheTropers or the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13164954120A97000100&page=1 Trope Description Improvement Drive]] so that there would be less headaches for the cleaners regarding unilateral changes. Thank you.
-->alnair
----
-->alnair
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Baleful Polymorph was renamed per TRS
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* ''Animagus in Plain Sight'': A character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione) becomes an animagus or is otherwise [[BalefulPolymorph transfigured into an animal]], and they hide in plain sight as the pet of another character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione). A popular candidate animal is the snake, which allows others to understand them if they happen to be a Parselmouth.
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* ''Animagus in Plain Sight'': A character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione) becomes an animagus or is otherwise [[BalefulPolymorph [[ForcedTransformation transfigured into an animal]], and they hide in plain sight as the pet of another character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione). A popular candidate animal is the snake, which allows others to understand them if they happen to be a Parselmouth.
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There are two basic strains to this avoidance: embarrassment and incurability. In the first case, people avoided talking about illnesses that involved nasty things like bodily functions, or which were transmitted sexually. AIDS, for instance, was long a taboo subject because it was primarily (but not exclusively) transmitted by sex, and in UsefulNotes/TheEighties it spread primarily in the gay community and led people to think it had [[BuryYourGays something to do with homosexuality]], or at least provided TooMuchInformation about the... ''unique'' sexual habits of the gay community of the time. But another good example is diarrhea, which is very common and easily treatable but pretty damn disgusting.
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There are two basic strains to this avoidance: embarrassment and incurability. In the first case, people avoided talking about illnesses that involved nasty things like bodily functions, or which were transmitted sexually. AIDS, for instance, was long a taboo subject because it was primarily (but not exclusively) transmitted by sex, and in UsefulNotes/TheEighties it spread primarily in the gay community and led people to think it had [[BuryYourGays something to do with homosexuality]], or at least provided TooMuchInformation about the... ''unique'' sexual habits of the gay community of the time.homosexuality]]. But another good example is diarrhea, which is very common and easily treatable but pretty damn disgusting.
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[[folder:Fandom Specific Plot]]
This is for FandomSpecificPlot[=/=]FandomSpecificPlot/HarryPotter. I've often felt drawn to fixing pages like this when I stumble upon them because they're rarely written in wikivoice and seem to be a hundred fanfic writers coming together talking about things without any regard for the presentation of it. ''Harry Potter'' is kinda ideal as I've read the books (well, a long time ago now) so I have the bird's-eye view, but I'm not so familiar with the fanfics and can present things a bit more "objectively". (As an aside -- the only ''Harry Potter'' fanfic I've ever read was ''My Immortal'', in part, insofar as it's possible to read it.)
The things I've chosen to fix are:
* Flow, most of all. Some examples are rewritten to flow better. Several are rearranged to group them together or eliminate redundancies. The whole thing should read like it was written by one person.
* Spelling and grammar, in some places, in particular use of apostrophes. In some places I replaced curly apostrophes with straight ones, in keeping with wiki policy (I ''know'' I read this somewhere) that straight ones are preferred for formatting reasons. Also tried to keep use of single and double apostrophes for quotes consistent.
* Gave everything titles. Maybe controversial, but some entries have them and others don't. Giving it a snappy title kinda works well to get the point across. I've seen this used on other pages, figure it would work here.
* In some cases created a "superplot" where there are common threads that people are missing, most notably "Light and Dark".
* A few cases of natter/poor indentation.
Here's my proposed revision:
This is for FandomSpecificPlot[=/=]FandomSpecificPlot/HarryPotter. I've often felt drawn to fixing pages like this when I stumble upon them because they're rarely written in wikivoice and seem to be a hundred fanfic writers coming together talking about things without any regard for the presentation of it. ''Harry Potter'' is kinda ideal as I've read the books (well, a long time ago now) so I have the bird's-eye view, but I'm not so familiar with the fanfics and can present things a bit more "objectively". (As an aside -- the only ''Harry Potter'' fanfic I've ever read was ''My Immortal'', in part, insofar as it's possible to read it.)
The things I've chosen to fix are:
* Flow, most of all. Some examples are rewritten to flow better. Several are rearranged to group them together or eliminate redundancies. The whole thing should read like it was written by one person.
* Spelling and grammar, in some places, in particular use of apostrophes. In some places I replaced curly apostrophes with straight ones, in keeping with wiki policy (I ''know'' I read this somewhere) that straight ones are preferred for formatting reasons. Also tried to keep use of single and double apostrophes for quotes consistent.
* Gave everything titles. Maybe controversial, but some entries have them and others don't. Giving it a snappy title kinda works well to get the point across. I've seen this used on other pages, figure it would work here.
* In some cases created a "superplot" where there are common threads that people are missing, most notably "Light and Dark".
* A few cases of natter/poor indentation.
Here's my proposed revision:
to:
This is
Just thought the description for
The things I've chosen to fix are:
* Flow, most of all. Some examples are rewritten to flow better. Several are rearranged to group them together or eliminate redundancies. The whole thing should read like it was written by one person.
* Spelling and grammar, in some places, in particular use of apostrophes. In some places I replaced curly apostrophes with straight ones, in keeping with wiki policy (I ''know'' I read this somewhere) that straight ones are preferred for formatting reasons. Also tried to keep use of single and double apostrophes for quotes consistent.
* Gave everything titles. Maybe controversial, but some entries have them and others don't. Giving it a snappy title kinda works well to get the point across. I've seen this used
* In some cases created
* A few cases of natter/poor indentation.
Here's my proposed revision:
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''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom has such an enormous fanfiction community, with so many common plotlines, that it's difficult to keep count.
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"AIDS?"\\
"''Nobody's got AIDS!'' I don't want to hear that word in here again!"
-->-'''[[Series/TheSopranos Tony Soprano]]''' and friends discuss colleague who was recently outed.
'''LEPROSY. TUBERCULOSIS. SYPHILIS. CORONAVIRUS. CANCER. AIDS. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking DIARRHEA.]]'''
There are some illnesses that we don't like talking about. Today, we are much more open about it, but not too long ago, you never mentioned them by name. Not in conversation, not in media -- not even in the doctor's office, leading to situations where a medical doctor might not actually tell the patient what's wrong with
There are two basic strains to this avoidance: embarrassment and incurability. In the first case, people avoided talking about illnesses that involved nasty things like bodily functions, or which were transmitted sexually. AIDS, for instance, was long a taboo subject because it was primarily (but not exclusively) transmitted by sex, and in UsefulNotes/TheEighties it spread primarily in the gay community and led people to think it had [[BuryYourGays something to do with homosexuality]], or at least provided TooMuchInformation about the... ''unique'' sexual habits of the gay community of the time. But another good example is diarrhea, which is very common
The second case regards incurability -- it can be difficult to discuss a disease that's effectively a death sentence. Sometimes it's a matter of not calling attention to the cruelty of one's fate. Sometimes it involves painful, invasive, or embarrassing treatments that do little other than buy the patient time. Sometimes it's superstition and a desire to avoid TemptingFate. In the days before the causes of diseases were known, communicable diseases which we know how to avoid today spread very easily, so people who heard rumors about some guy coming down with cholera were likely to get it in due time -- they just didn't know they would get it from drinking from the same well, and not from just [[SpeakOfTheDevil saying its name]], and so came centuries of the AssociationFallacy.
The king of this trope, though, is cancer, because it actually fits into both categories. For centuries, it was known but impossible to treat; even today, half of all cancers remain incurable, and the rest can only be treated with invasive and unpleasant procedures like surgery and chemotherapy. In the old days, a cancer diagnosis was effectively a death sentence; that's why doctors were so reluctant to name it. But there was also a strain of embarrassment, because in the old days, it was so hard to diagnose that only the easy ones were known -- and those were breast, cervical, and vaginal cancers, all of which involved women's intimate parts that no one liked to talk about. Oddly, the advances in cancer treatment have made the subject ''more'' taboo over the years; it started as a thing that could affect anyone and was just a part of life, but then it was later connected to certain habits like smoking, at which point it was still a "death sentence" but mentioning it could be an indictment of the sufferer. The word became so unpalatable that even using the word "cancer" in other contexts is avoided, like how some horoscopes will refer to the astrological sign as "Moon Child".
In some languages, like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_profanity Dutch]], profanity largely consists of the names of diseases. If a Dutchman tells you to "kanker op," he's not hoping you really get cancer; he just really doesn't want to see you.
In fiction, this trope (when not used InUniverse) attempts to make things more palatable for the audience by not subjecting them to the gory details of what a character is suffering. It can also avoid ArtisticLicenseMedicine -- the audience can't call an author out on getting the details of a disease wrong if they never name the disease to begin with.
Compare DiseaseByAnyOtherName (the audience knows the disease but not the characters); TheTopicOfCancer and TragicAIDSStory (exploring the tension and awkwardness of bringing up those specific diseases); SecretlyDying; NeverSayDie; VictorianNovelDisease; DelicateAndSickly; LittlestCancerPatient; AmbiguousDisorder; GoodVictimsBadVictims; and TheScottishTrope (the means by which characters avoid saying a specific name). Contrast IncurableCoughOfDeath and SoapOperaDisease, where the illness's symptons are [[JustForFun ill]]-defined and vague just to ensure that they're convenient to the plot.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fandom Specific Plot]]
This is for FandomSpecificPlot[=/=]FandomSpecificPlot/HarryPotter. I've often felt drawn to fixing pages like this when I stumble upon them because they're rarely written in wikivoice and seem to be a hundred fanfic writers coming together talking about things without any regard for the presentation of it. ''Harry Potter'' is kinda ideal as I've read the books (well, a long time ago now) so I have the bird's-eye view, but I'm not so familiar with the fanfics and can present things a bit more "objectively". (As an aside -- the only ''Harry Potter'' fanfic I've ever read was ''My Immortal'', in part, insofar as it's possible to read it.)
The things I've chosen to fix are:
* Flow, most of all. Some examples are rewritten to flow better. Several are rearranged to group them together or eliminate redundancies. The whole thing should read like it was written by one person.
* Spelling and grammar, in some places, in particular use of apostrophes. In some places I replaced curly apostrophes with straight ones, in keeping with wiki policy (I ''know'' I read this somewhere) that straight ones are preferred for formatting reasons. Also tried to keep
* Gave everything titles. Maybe controversial, but some entries have them and others don't. Giving it a snappy title kinda works well to get the point across. I've seen this used on other pages, figure it would work here.
* In some cases created a "superplot" where there are common threads that people are missing, most notably "Light and Dark".
* A few cases of natter/poor indentation.
Here's my proposed revision:
Added DiffLines:
''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom has such an enormous fanfiction community, with so many common plotlines, that it's difficult to keep count.
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!!'''NewsParody'''
What I hoped to clean up:
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots of "also" and the like)
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from this location wrote this particular example"
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description, because that detail should be in the example section. Examples in the description like that give the false impression that they're "special" in some way.
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other, and most news parodies focus on the local politics. It's not a strict order, though.
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to be an example. It doesn't appear to be a parody, just an InUniverse NewsBroadcast. I might be wrong, though -- it's just that the example didn't say so.
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't seem to be a high priority. I mean, I know it's trivial, but I just had to say it :)
Proposed revision:
What I hoped to clean up:
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots of "also" and the like)
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from this location wrote this particular example"
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description, because that detail should be in the example section. Examples in the description like that give the false impression that they're "special" in some way.
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other, and most news parodies focus on the local politics. It's not a strict order, though.
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to be an example. It doesn't appear to be a parody, just an InUniverse NewsBroadcast. I might be wrong, though -- it's just that the example didn't say so.
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't seem to be a high priority. I mean, I know it's trivial, but I just had to say it :)
Proposed revision:
to:
What I hoped
[[folder:Fandom Specific Plot]]
This is for FandomSpecificPlot[=/=]FandomSpecificPlot/HarryPotter. I've often felt drawn to
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots of "also" and the like)
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description,
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other,
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to be an example. It doesn't appear to be a parody, just an InUniverse NewsBroadcast. I might be wrong, though -- it's just that the example didn't say so.
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't
The things I've chosen to fix are:
* Flow, most of all. Some examples are rewritten to flow better. Several are rearranged to group them together or eliminate redundancies. The whole thing should read like it was written by one person.
* Spelling and grammar, in some places, in particular use of apostrophes. In some places I replaced curly apostrophes with straight ones, in keeping with wiki policy (I ''know'' I read this somewhere) that straight ones are preferred for formatting reasons. Also tried to keep use of single and double apostrophes for quotes consistent.
* Gave everything titles. Maybe controversial, but
Proposed
* In some cases created a "superplot" where there are common threads that people are missing, most notably "Light and Dark".
* A few cases of natter/poor indentation.
Here's my proposed revision:
Changed line(s) 26,39 (click to see context) from:
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
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[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented with a [[{{Satire}} satiric and snide tone]]. It may be a show's entire premise or a single segment within a SketchComedy (like ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Weekend Update").
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not, it's a variant known as "faux news", like ''Series/TheDayToday'' -- the stories are done InTheStyleOf real news stories and spoof the array of NewsTropes. If it does report actual news stories, it usually intersperses its reporting with jokes and commentary that you wouldn't get from a real NewsBroadcast. Over time, some viewers have come to prefer getting their news from News Parodies over "real" news outlets (which most News Parodies themselves don't recommend -- they might be factual, but their breadth of coverage is too limited).
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented with a [[{{Satire}} satiric and snide tone]]. It may be a show's entire premise or a single segment within a SketchComedy (like ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Weekend Update").
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not, it's a variant known as "faux news", like ''Series/TheDayToday'' -- the stories are done InTheStyleOf real news stories and spoof the array of NewsTropes. If it does report actual news stories, it usually intersperses its reporting with jokes and commentary that you wouldn't get from a real NewsBroadcast. Over time, some viewers have come to prefer getting their news from News Parodies over "real" news outlets (which most News Parodies themselves don't recommend -- they might be factual, but their breadth of coverage is too limited).
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
to:
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not,
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
Added DiffLines:
!!Overpowered Harry:
Often tagged "Independent Harry", "Powerful Harry", or "Pureblood Culture/Society/Politics" (no one is sure what to call it). The idea is that Dumbledore is a ManipulativeBastard setting Harry up as a {{sacrific|ialLamb}}e in order to defeat Voldemort -- and, in more extreme cases, is planning to [[GloryHound take all the credit afterward]]. To ensure this, Dumbledore suppresses Harry's power and wealth. However, Harry finds out, emancipates himself, and unlocks his ''real'' power and influence -- which he'll need to thwart both Dumbledore and Riddle.
In better-done takes, Harry must work out whom he can trust and what he needs to know before Dumbledore or Voldemort can enact their plans. In more poorly written iterations, Harry effortlessly defangs and counters all opposition, leaving them blinking in stupefaction in his wake.
Common features include:
* Harry's real name isn't "Harry". Weirdly, it is also never "Henry" or "Harold", the two names usually shortened to "Harry" (''e.g.'' [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Prince Harry]], who would be "Henry IX" if he ever became King). Instead, it's usually something powerful and magical-sounding, like "Hadrian". Worringly, it implies that many writers agree with Aunt Petunia's assessment that "Harry" is a "nasty, common name" unfit for their special superpowered wizard god.
* Harry is a "Lord" of some sort but never knew about it. This in spite of {{canon}} mentioning several times that there is no wizarding nobility. He could be "Lord Potter", "Lord Black", "Lord Slytherin", or "Lord Peverell", or anything else sounding sufficiently "magical". One subgenre has him as "Lord Azkaban", which gives him control of the main wizarding prison (and often comes with the reveal that the Ministry of Magic owes him centuries' worth of back taxes for using his prison).
* Harry is entitled to a seat on the Wizengamot, if not multiple seats. As the Wizengamot is essentially the highest wizarding court, one would think a seat is earned on merit, but in these fics, the seats are hereditary -- they come with Harry's "lordship", no questions asked. Harry can leverage those seats to make the Ministry of Magic do his bidding. Furthermore, some technicality will allow Harry to be treated as a legal adult while he's still in school -- the most common one is his participation in the Triwizard Tournament, which is technically not open to underage wizards (but had been in the past -- it's just the relaunched tournament that isn't). Meanwhile, Harry can engage in political power games with powerful families like the Malfoys, who will ''also'' own multiple seats in the Wizengamot and be portrayed as corrupt and evil for doing [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality exactly what Harry is doing]]. All of this ignores that the Wizengamot is technically ''subordinate'' to the Ministry of Magic, almost as if the writers are [[WeAllLiveInAmerica mostly Americans]] who expect the court system to be equal with the rest of the government.
* Harry is also entitled to a shitload of money. While Harry already canonically has a vault at Gringotts containing the money he inherited from his deceased parents (that's why DeceasedParentsAreTheBest), the fic will establish that there are ''more'' vaults with ''more'' money and treasure to which Harry's access has been blocked. Many fics justify this by noting that Harry's vault is just money (implying it's just a trust fund), while other families explicitly have treasure in their vaults.
* Harry gets a "magical inheritance" that instantly grants him a SuperpowerLottery of magical talents and abilities, with no effort involved. Expect him to be a metamorphmagus, an animagus (almost always a dragon or phoenix), gain special versions of his existing spells (like a golden Patronus), or have several other skills and "lost" forms of magic that no one else has. This "inheritance" usually requires a particularly powerful magical background; this often forces writers to {{Retcon}} Harry's mother Lily as not being a Muggleborn and actually coming from a powerful magical family. It also allows a sort of kinship with Neville, who canonically ''is'' descended from a powerful magical family and might know the secrets of magical inheritance.
* Harry gets to totally disavow [[AbusiveParents the Dursleys]]. Dumbledore's insistence that Harry live with them is revealed to be part of his plot to suppress Harry's power. Expect the Dursleys to be far more abusive than they were in canon. If Lily is revealed to really be from a magical family, she might not be related to Petunia at all.
* Harry gets a PowerMakeover. Since he no longer has to wear Dudley's hand-me-downs and is obscenely wealthy, he can dress for ''style'', often by shopping at [[{{Goth}} Hot Topic or the local equivalent]]. He also uses potion-steroids to fix his appearance, like fixing his eyesight, bulking up and getting a growth spurt (counteracting the Dursleys' starvation regimen), and obscuring or even removing his trademark scar. He also often grows his hair long. This serves to make him unrecognizable to Dumbledore and his (once) closest friends.
* Ron -- and often Hermione, but ''always'' [[RonTheDeathEater Ron]] -- is revealed to have only befriended Harry on Dumbledore's order. 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 GambitRoulette, given how her actual friendship with Harry began. Ron's mother Molly is usually involved in the deception[[note]]Indeed, many writers point to a single "inconsistency" from ''Philosopher's Stone'' to prove her duplicitous nature -- that she asks Ginny which platform the Hogwarts Express leaves from, when it hasn't changed in decades and Molly's been sending her older children to Hogwarts for years. Evidently, these writers have never heard of the "question game", in which parents will ask their young children questions to which they already know the answer (but pretend they don't) to test the child's knowledge[[/note]], possibly for her own selfish reasons like ensuring Harry marries Ginny, or getting paid by Dumbledore, usually with money embezzled from Harry's vast fortune (which would only increase the odds of Harry finding out the truth). Many fics have Harry only learning this in the future and fixing it with TimeTravel, turning him into a PeggySue. If they don't, Ron and Hermione stop being Harry's friends as soon as he finds out about the deception, and he has to go find new allies.
* Not everything Harry inherits is a good thing. He's also subject to a "marriage contract" of some kind, signed in his infancy or even before he was born, requiring him to marry a girl (or girls) he barely knows. Either the girl herself or her family is the villain of the story, and if the girl isn't the villain, then she's his TrueLove. Said girl could be a canon character like Hermione or Luna (but never Ginny), or an OCStandIn who was barely mentioned, often a Slytherin like Daphne Greengrass. (Or [[AuthorAppeal all of them at once]].)
* Harry gets the goblins of Gringotts on his side. This is usually accomplished through simple courtesies, like [[WantsAPrizeForBasicDecency remembering Griphook's name]], which mark him as radically different from the rest of the racist bastards that make up the rest of the wizarding world. This allows the goblins to throw all of their military and economic power behind Harry.
* Harry gets a super-trunk that's BiggerOnTheInside. It has its own apartment, kitchen, library, potions lab, training room, and Quidditch field. While it is canonically a viable concept (see Hermione's BagOfHolding and Newt Scamander's briefcase in ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem''), none of this is strictly necessary, especially if Harry inherits vast mansions and other properties.
* Harry gets hardcore in his magic and goes fully "Dark". He turns simple spells that they learn in class like ''Wingardium Leviosa'' into deadly techniques. He successfully argues that no spell is truly "dark", even the Unforgivable Curses that require the caster to enjoy killing, controlling, or torturing their victim. He might also get a new super-wand or staff, usually made with basilisk parts.
* Harry picks up a "snake" theme, perhaps in keeping with his suppressed Slytherin side. Expect him to get a super-special snake familiar to act as his spy, mentor, and confidant in equal measure.
* Harry gets trained in special unknown magic by elves, demons, vampires, goblins, [[Series/DoctorWho Time Lords]], or what have you. This gives him powers far more advanced than any of his peers, allowing him to stun his classmates when he comes back to Hogwarts for the next term and easily solve every problem the canon throws at him. Exactly why these people choose to train Harry can vary from "no explanation given" to "he's [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Lord of the Vampires]]." Staples include limitless shapeshifting, wandless and wordless magic, "almost Unforgivable" curses, fluency in a secret language, and floating runes.
* Harry is [[{{Frameup}} framed]] for some horrendous crime and imprisoned in Azkaban. [[RonTheDeathEater All of his friends will turn on him]] in the process, including [[{{Hypocrite}} Sirius]]. They usually take the opportunity to be particularly cruel to Harry, with the standard acts being [[DisproportionateRetribution killing Hedwig and destroying his photo album]] while laughing about it. Eventually, Harry 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 him, as well as to defeat Voldemort (if the two aren't one and the same). In other words, it's ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' [-[[RecycledInSpace WITH HARRY POTTER!]]-].
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!!Abusive Dursleys:
In these fanfics, Harry's abusive childhood is usually [[PlayedForDrama treated more seriously]] than in the books. It's also dramatically escalated, graduating to brutal violence and GratuitousRape. Interestingly, the abuse is often not {{retcon}}ned to have been happening all along; instead, it starts when Harry is a grown teenager, showing him arriving back at Privet Drive for the summer and the Dursleys immediately turning into monsters for whatever reason. Sometimes there's an explicit catalyst, such as Moody threatening the Dursleys at the end of the fifth book. Such fics often start InMediasRes, with a beaten Harry reflecting on how different the Dursleys have been this summer.
That's not to say that there are ''no'' stories in which the abuse has always happened. Those stories have it starting when Harry is an infant, leading to a character who's sustained multiple serious injuries by eleven years old and being dangerously underweight from the starvation diet imposed on him. Weirdly, it doesn't extent to his height, when one would expect a long-malnourished child to be shorter than his peers.
Common features include:
* 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. While Petunia might be abused herself and undergo a HighHeelFaceTurn, you won't see that with Dudley.
* Harry is given a LongList of impossible chores, and is beaten and raped for failing to complete them.
* Harry lives in the cupboard under the stairs. If they had let him move out like they did in canon, in the fic they force him back down there again.
* Vernon brutally kills Hedwig, ensuring that Harry can't contact the wizarding world for help. Either this is Vernon's motivation for doing so, or he's just trying something new to torture Harry.
* Harry never saves himself from the abuse, regardless of how old he is, how powerful he is, and how often he's faced Voldemort. He [[BadassDecay never stands up for himself]] -- either he dies, or someone else saves him. Indeed, a Harry who can save himself obviates the point of the story; that kind of fic usually goes in the other direction, with an overpowered Harry [[DisproportionateRetribution smacking the Dursleys into submission]] the second they lay a finger on him.
* Harry develops [[SplitPersonality Dissociative Identity Disorder]] from the abuse.
* Harry becomes an obscurial from the abuse, a development introduced by the ''Fantastic Beasts'' films. Either he turns into a walking AngstNuke, or he learns to harness the obscurus and boost his power.
* Dumbledore knows what's up but does nothing to stop it, either because he's oblivious or because he's trying to suppress Harry's power.
* Whoever saves Harry will be an unexpected ally, often [[DracoInLeatherPants Snape]]. This allows the abuse to set up a HurtComfortFic.
* An occasional {{inver|tedTrope}}sion sees ''Petunia'' as the abuser and Vernon as the more reasonable one. It has the potential to be more interesting, exploring Petunia's extreme resentment of being TheUnfavorite next to her sister Lily, and giving Vernon a little character development. More often, though, writers use it as an excuse to power Harry up [[MugglesDoItBetter the Muggle way]] by having Vernon sneak him out of the house and teach him martial arts or give him a firearm as a means to defend himself.[[note]]Again, most of these writers [[WeAllLiveInAmerica are Americans]] and neglect to address the strict firearms laws in Britain that would prevent this kind of thing from happening.[[/note]]
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!!Other Canon Era Plots:
* ''Harry Is Raised Differently'': Harry is not abused ''exactly like'' the books portray. Whether this is because he was raised by someone else, or just because the Dursleys didn't abuse him the same way, this leads to Harry having a totally different personality when he gets to Hogwarts. Given Harry's canon status as a NaiveNewcomer, it turns him into effectively an OCStandIn; fics like this either go the easy route and turn Harry into an overpowered phenom, or they explore what a different character might do in Harry's situation. It's not always a happy ending; consider a Harry who ends up as fat and nasty as Dudley and how ready ''he'd'' be to face Voldemort. However, the vast majority of fanfics conclude that pretty much anyone and everyone other than ''maybe'' [[HateSink Umbridge]] would have done a better job raising Harry than the Dursleys, leading to fanfics showing a much better-adjusted Harry arriving at Hogwarts having been raised by, ''inter alia'', Sirius and Remus; Snape; the Longbottoms; his [[RetCon not-so-dead parents]]; the Malfoys; the Lestranges; Voldemort himself; Kreacher; Barty Crouch, Jr; [[RaisedByWolves snakes]]; Dementors; TheLegionsOfHell; or [[MyOwnGrandpa himself]]. All of this ignores the fact that Harry has important and powerful blood protection from being raised by the Dursleys which prevents Voldemort from [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just killing him]] over the summer.
* ''Late to Hogwarts'': A young wizard or witch doesn't start Hogwarts at eleven years old, whether because they didn't get an invitation or were otherwise unable to go. A popular subgenre is the ''Transfer Student Fic'', in which the student comes from a different wizarding school. It's very popular as a WishFulfillment fic, with the other school being [[CreatorProvincialism wherever the author's from]], allowing the author to ''(a)'' invent a new, totally awesome wizarding school; ''(b)'' give the character unique, totally awesome, [[WrongContextMagic never seen in Britain]] magic; ''(c)'' not worry about the canon Hogwarts selection process; and ''(d)'' employ an ObviousCrossoverMethod. Giving the transfer student an inherited {{katana|sAreJustBetter}} is a red flag. ''VideoGame/HogwartsLegacy'' also uses the transfer student plot, but its developers are explicit that it's not canon.
* ''The Field Trip'': Hogwarts students travel to another country to visit a wizarding school there. And it's usually in America, for the same reason that the exchange student usually comes from there. Sometimes it's a genuine wizarding school, in other cases it may as well by [[HighSchoolAU a Muggle high school]]. The former is mostly deprecated thanks to later canon establishing that there's only one wizarding school in North America, Ilvermorny, attended by a handful of the ''Fantastic Beasts'' characters.
* ''Snape Employs Magical Healing'': A character, often Snape (because [[DracoInLeatherPants of course]]), uses hitherto unseen expertise to cure a character of a magical ailment that was previously thought to be permanent. Common examples include curing Lupin of his lycanthropy and Neville's parents of their torture-induced madness. Now that these characters are indebted to Snape, the author can expound how awesome he is.
* ''Harry's LongLostRelative'': Harry finds (or is found by) a distant relative, either by blood or geography, who rescues Harry from the Dursleys and possibly even adopts him. It's powerful {{Crossover}} fodder, too.
* ''[[TheBadGuyWins Voldemort Wins]]'': A DarkFic set in the bleak {{Dystopia}} of a victorious Voldemort. While an interesting concept, all too often it's just window dressing for a kinky {{Lemon}} in which Hermione is forced to be Draco's SexSlave or something. (Even then, after ''Deathly Hallows'' most such fics take place during the interregnum when Voldemort ''did'' take over Britain.)
* ''[[TheBadGuyWins Voldemort Wins]], but Harry Goes PeggySue'': Voldemort succeeds in conquering wizarding Britain (or at least scores a PyrrhicVictory that leaves it a depopulated wasteland). But Harry [[PeggySue goes back in time]] to his school days, so that he can SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. (Sometimes it's a different character, but usually it's Harry.) A particular variant is the "[=Reptilia28=] Challenge", in which [[TheGrimReaper Death himself]] sends Harry back in time.[[note]][=Reptilia28=] himself became dissatisfied with the challenge as the plots "seem[ed] to blur together into one giant mass."[[/note]]
* ''Voldemort [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight Uses Time Travel to Try Again]]'': Harry succeeds, but now the bad guys use TimeTravel to MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight. Either Harry (or whoever) has to follow them back in time in a TerminatorTwosome, or school-age Harry and friends face a new threat. Both ''[[Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical A Very Potter Sequel]]'' and ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild'' use variants of this, and its status as a FandomSpecificPlot is part of what made the latter feel so "fanfic-like". There's also a subgenre in which Voldemort [[TheExtremistWasRight turns out to be right]] and [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters the Muggles are the real monsters]], so Voldemort or his emissary becomes the good guy.
* ''Head Boy and Girl's Private Quarters'': The Head Boy and Girl do not stay in the normal dormitories with everybody else, but instead have their own suite of rooms that they have to share. And there's only one bathroom. This forces them to interact a lot and generates massive amounts of UnresolvedSexualTension. These fics tend to ignore that positions like Head Boy and Head Girl are based on academic merit and have totally random people like [[SpoiledBrat Draco Malfoy]] get handed the position. The whole point of all this, as you'd expect, is {{Shipping}}, and anyone and everyone can be shipped like this as long as they're the same age: Ron/Hermione, Harry/Hermione, [[FoeYayShipping Hermione/Draco]], Lily/James, Rose/Scorpius, anyone with the OriginalCharacter. This apparently originated from Percy/Penelope, who were a couple in canon and happened to be Head Boy and Head Girl (but with no mention of them having a special dormitory, and even showing Percy living with the other Gryffindors).
* ''Education in Domestic Harmony'': A hitherto unmentioned required course at Hogwarts pairs up the characters to learn how to be adults. This apparently requires them to live in the Room of Requirement and pretend to be a married couple, including EggSitting a magically-created baby. The idea is that the characters will fall in love. There is no explanation as to the morality of putting two {{Hormone Addled Teenager}}s in a room and forcing them to raise a child whom you plan to ''delete'' in a couple of months.
* ''The Yule Ball Happens Every Year Now'': Canonically, the Yule Ball only happens in years in which the Triwizard Tournament is held. No such restraint in fanfic; there, it happens every year. This allows the raft of HighSchoolDance tropes to be used with little restriction. Indeed, it was so attractive to writers that many were under the impression that the Yule Ball really ''did'' happen every year and the only reason we didn't see it until ''Goblet of Fire'' is that the characters weren't old enough for it; it wasn't until ''Order of the Phoenix'' came out that fanfic writers figured it out. In the meantime, every fanfic assumed otherwise, even ''Fanfic/TheDracoTrilogy''. A few persisted afterwards, some with a {{Handwave}} as to why it happens every year now.
* ''The Maid of Malfoy Manor'': A female character -- usually Hermione, Ginny, or an OriginalCharacter -- is hired as a maid in Malfoy Manor. Draco lives there. Do you [[{{Shipping}} see where this is going]]?
* ''The Severitus Fic'': Harry's real father is not James Potter, but [[LukeIAmYourFather Severus Snape]]. The style of fic is named after the "Severitus Challenge", issued in 2001 by fanfic writer Severitus. The challenge mostly arose out of the fact that [[GenerationXerox Harry looks almost exactly like James]]; it originally called for writers to find a way for Harry's appearance to change to look more like Snape over the course of the fic. It was a silly challenge, but it was extremely popular, and the name stuck around even after people started to drop some of the requirements (some of which were unrelated to the Harry/Snape relationship, like Lupin coming back to Hogwarts). Among the explanations for why Lily would ever have a child with Snape: ''(a)'' Lily really loved Snape, despite him being a Muggle-hating Death Eater whose ideology drove them apart in canon; ''(b)'' Lily had an affair with Snape, probably because James never grew up like canon says he did; ''(c)'' James couldn't have children, and Lily asked her friend to do them a favor; ''(d)'' James, Lily, and Severus were in a secret [[OneTrueThreesome threesome]] and Harry was their [[DesignerBabies secret potion-baby]]; or ''(e)'' any number of inane ideas that [[CanonDefilement completely ignore canon]].
* ''[[LightDarknessJuxtaposition Light and Dark]]'': The ''Harry Potter'' universe is recast in a strict dichotomy between "light" and "dark", almost in a ''Franchise/StarWars''-esque way. This in spite of the canon series never having treated magic like that, or even many of the canon characters (''e.g.'' Voldemort's "there is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it"). Stories tend to lean on the LightDarknessJuxtaposition to allow characters to more easily switch sides, or to explain why a character is so much more powerful than the used to be. In particular, it allows Harry to turn "Dark" and unlock incredible power, and for characters like {{Ron|TheDeathEater}} to suddenly turn on Harry because they hate the "Dark" so much.
* ''The Second Prophecy'': The prophecy about Harry and Voldemort isn't the only one about Harry. There's another one that the characters have missed. It usually ends with Harry turning to the Dark Arts, or picking up God Mode, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs both]]. Expect obscure and symbolic animal imagery and vague terms about "light" and "dark", which are not common features of canon prophecies. One common subgenre is for the second prophecy to ''undo'' the first and make Harry TheUnchosenOne, usually in favour of a female character who can redeem the enemy with ThePowerOfLove (read: hook up with Draco and induce a SexFaceTurn).
* ''The GenderBender Fic'': One of the male characters is [[ManIFeelLikeAWoman turned into a girl]], either temporarily or permanently. And they can't change back at will, even using the same spell. It's often done for JumpingTheGenderBarrier, allowing the writer to pair two originally male characters without it being a SlashFic. In other cases, the writer has no idea beyond "let's make this character into a girl!", and after the literary equivalent of a ShoppingMontage, the story becomes a DeadFic.
* ''RonTheDeathEater'': It's a scenario so common, it became the {{Trope Namer|s}} for the entire phenomenon. Ron is so jealous and resentful of Harry that he goes ''way'' OutOfCharacter and spontaneously does a FaceHeelTurn. The most common reason for this is that the writer ships Harry/Hermione and seeks to make Ron DieForOurShip. It doesn't always have to be Ron, though; sometimes Ginny's the culprit, dosing Harry with LovePotion to steal his money and fame.
* ''In Love with a Book'': Ginny falls in love with the ghost of student-aged Tom Riddle, as expressed through his diary in ''Chamber of Secrets''. While many shippers [[NoYay shy away from that particular pairing]] because it's pretty {{Squick}}y, others find it intriguing. But very few of them are able to come up with anything more than "Tom Riddle has sex with Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets before Harry shows up".
* ''The Talking Diary'': All magical diaries are like Tom Riddle's and talk back to you when you write in them. Some such fics make the diary evil just like Tom Riddle's was, but others treat the diary more neutrally and portray it as a normal thing. (If it were a normal thing, no parent would be keen on their teenage girl opening their heart to some stranger in their diary, but whatever.)
* ''Ginny's Still Evil'': Harry doesn't actually save Ginny when he destroys Riddle's diary -- she's still got the evil in her. This can go two ways -- either Ginny [[RonTheDeathEater turns on Harry]] (and separates him from his ''actual'' LoveInterest), or she's treated sympathetically because EvilIsSexy. When combined with the above plot, it essentially turns her into "[[WeCanRuleTogether Tom Riddle's queen]]", with Voldemort magically reverting to his [[DracoInLeatherPants Riddle-era good looks]].
* ''The Summer of Love'': Harry spends the summer with a female character, they fall in love very quickly, and CoitusEnsues. It usually happens after ''Order of the Phoenix'', when Harry canonically leaves the Dursleys for good and hangs out at Sirius's old place. The three most popular candidates for said girl are Hermione (but [[FanPreferredCouple of course]]), an OriginalCharacter (but ''[[WishFulfillment of course]]''), or Tonks (who helps Harry get over Sirius's death, never mind that she's seven years older than he is). In some cases, their love will be so strong that [[ThePowerOfLove it will be the key to defeating Voldemort]], and there may even be a second prophecy to that effect. Ron and Ginny will [[RonTheDeathEater turn evil]] in opposition to the relationship, ''especially'' if the girl is Hermione.
* ''The FountainOfYouth'': A character is de-aged to a baby or small child and must be cared for by other characters -- or, in some cases, one character in particular. The victim is usually Snape, and the whole point of the fic is to make him cuddly.
* ''Matchmaker Dumbledore'': Wise, old Dumbledore understands the power and righteousness of the author's OneTruePairing. He becomes a ShipperOnDeck, focusing all his efforts on getting those characters together rather than irrelevant concerns like killing Voldemort. After all, if ''Dumbledore'' says Draco and Ginny should be together, then obviously it ''must'' be true, right? It's never combined with a "manipulative Dumbledore" story because Dumbledore needs to be the good guy in this equation. It often, however, gets combined with the ''Head Boy and Girl's Private Quarters'' plot and may even "explain" (such as it does) why they have such an arrangement to begin with.
* ''I Married a Teenaged Veela'': In the course of the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, Gabrielle Delacour bonds to Harry because he took the time to save her. This means that for all magical and legal purposes, she is now 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 she undergoes a perfectly normal delayed and accelerated puberty that leaves her physically at her real age of 14 or so. Not exclusive to Harry/Gabrielle shipping stores; it's also surprisingly common in Harry[=/=]UnwantedHarem stories.
* ''Sirius Lives'': ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin -- Sirius Black survives his demise in ''Order of the Phoenix''. There's a surprisingly common subgenre in which he and Harry team up to become {{Gentleman Thie|f}}ves who [[JustLikeRobinHood steal from the Death Eaters and give to their victims]]. In the process, they go from [[BlueBlood wealthy]] to having [[BlasphemousBoast more money than God]]. Also often combined with the Harem fics. One variant has him ''actually'' dead but successfully resurrected by Harry and company; this variant usually doubles as a HurtComfortFic, as the characters help Sirius get over his ResurrectionSickness. (And ''then'' they become {{Gentleman Thie|f}}ves.)
* ''Professor Figg'': Arabella Figg, the unassuming neighbour who was Harry's babysitter growing up, turns up as a Hogwarts professor. Most often, she teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts and is the most badass CoolOldLady ever. It was a common fic during the so-called "three-year summer" between the releases of ''Goblet of Fire'' and ''Order of the Phoenix''; after the latter established that she was a MuggleBornOfMages, this plot died a quick death.
* ''The Level Beyond "Wizard"'': There exists a sect of uber-powerful magical people who are to wizards as wizards are to {{Muggles}}. They're called "Magids" in ''FanFic/TheDracoTrilogy'', "Strega" in ''FanFic/PawnToQueen'', and "Druids" in ''The Girl Who Lived'', but it's all the same basic idea. Expect them to be right about everything, leading to {{Author Filibuster}}s and CantArgueWithElves scenarios. It was so common that ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' made fun of the concept with the "double witch", a form of WishFulfillment fantasy common in [[{{Chuunibyou}} young witches and wizards who want "special magical powers"]] (which leads Hermione to conclude that witches and wizards seem not to appreciate their powers at all).
* ''Animagus in Plain Sight'': A character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione) becomes an animagus or is otherwise [[BalefulPolymorph transfigured into an animal]], and they hide in plain sight as the pet of another character (usually Harry, Draco, or Hermione). A popular candidate animal is the snake, which allows others to understand them if they happen to be a Parselmouth.
* ''Harry [[RaisedByWolves Raised by Snakes]]'': This is usually accomplished by having the Dursleys dump Harry in the woods as a toddler. He grows up knowing only Parseltongue and becomes a snake animagus (often by accident). It's usually a setup for a manipulative Dumbledore, a Dark Harry, and a Voldemort who can [[PetTheDog Pet the Snake]].
* ''Slytherin Returns'': Salazar Slytherin lives as SealedEvilInACan -- and the can gets opened. And the statue of him in the Chamber of Secrets really ''is'' him -- the result of an accident from a misplaced ''engorgio'' charm and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard accidentally looking into the eyes of his own basilisk]].[[note]]Canonically, direct eye contact should ''kill'' him; all the characters who evaded death by being petrified did so by catching the basilisk's gaze in a mirror. Not that most fanfic authors will remember this.[[/note]] Such fics are usually set after Voldemort's defeat, when a new BigBad is needed; those fics usually just turn Salazar into Voldemort with a different name, right down to [[MookCarryover recruiting former Death Eaters as his followers]]. ''FanFic/TheDracoTrilogy'' is the TropeCodifier, if not the TropeMaker; infamous fic ''Hogwarts Exposed'' used it too.
* ''[[OverlordJr The Spawn of Voldemort]]'': Voldemort has children! And they seek to finish the job even after their father is defeated at the end of the canon series. Again, it's used to allow for a villain in stories set after the series' end. Bizarrely, it's technically AscendedFanon, given its use in ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild''.
* ''Everywhere Else Is Full'': A common trope in both fan fiction and the original books -- whoever gets top dibs on Hogwarts Express compartments, it's not the main characters. Inevitably, Everywhere Else Is Full, so they'll have to share a compartment with a plot-relevant character. In canon, it's used to introduce Ron in the first book, Lupin in the third book, and Luna in the fifth book. The line "everywhere else is full" is actually spoken by Hermione in the third movie and by Ron in ''both'' the film and book version of ''Philosopher's Stone''. In the world of fan fiction, it's pretty much reached the level of SharePhrase, and it's a traditional way of introducing new characters.
* ''Voldemort Mentors Harry'': Voldemort secretly mentors Harry into joining the Dark Side and putting the filthy Muggles in their place. He usually accomplishes this in [[SoulJar horcrux]] form, most commonly the diary or Harry's scar. Interestingly, it kind of happens in ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', in which Voldemort (or rather another villain [[GrandTheftMe taking over his body]]) becomes headmaster of Hogwarts and Harry grows up to be a psychopath.
* ''Voldemort Adopts Harry'': Instead of trying to kill Harry on that fateful night, Voldemort kidnaps him and raises him as his own son, training him to become a TykeBomb. Related to the above plot, but this time with Voldemort getting in on the action as early as he possibly can.
* ''Harry Adopts Voldemort'': The opposite of the above. Harry is sent back in time to the 1940s, rescues young Tom Riddle from the OrphanageOfFear, and gives him a loving home so that he won't become Voldemort.
* ''The Creature Fic'': Harry (or Draco or Hermione) is suddenly revealed to be a HalfHumanHybrid and will come into his "creature inheritance" at age sixteen. While such hybrids do exist in canon (most notably half-giant Hagrid), there's nothing to suggest such traits do not manifest until one is a teenager. A particular variant is where Draco Malfoy is revealed to be a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], or an [[OurElvesAreDifferent elf]], or a male Veela -- the point here is that he's one of TheFairFolk, naturally more beautiful and sexy than your ordinary human, which means it makes total sense to [[DracoInLeatherPants betrouser him in leather]] the way fanfic writers so often do.
* ''Fem!Blaise'': Blaise Zabini is canonically a male. In fanfic, Blaise Zabini is more often a female. Since [[PronounTrouble they]] are basically an OCStandIn who was mentioned only very obliquely in the series as a Slytherin peer of Malfoy's, fanfic writers over time built up a character around them independently from the canon. In fanfic, she quickly became a fair-skinned Italian bombshell who's frequently shipped with Harry. It wasn't until later that canon revealed that not only is he [[GenderBlenderName a "he"]], he's also ''[[RaceLift black]]''. This one so shattered the popular fan conception of the character that it became a major example of OutdatedByCanon, to the point that they're the page image for the trope.
* ''Vampire!Cedric'': Cedric Diggory is a vampire -- a plot derived entirely from his film incarnation [[ActorAllusion being played]] by [[Creator/RobertPattinson the same actor]] who played ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'''s Edward Cullen, sparkly vampiric boyfriend extraordinaire. It was just too much for some writers to resist. This connection also spread to a few other characters becoming vampires, like Malfoy or Snape. Or, in the case of ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'', damn near everyone (even though that particular fic predated ''Twilight'').
* ''Harry the {{Necromancer}}'': Harry has the power to raise the dead. It's often combined with the "Overpowered Harry" story suggesting he inherited the power, with TheReveal that the Potters were historically a "Dark" family and their ability to raise the dead goes back to the Peverell brothers and their bargain with Death. (Some even explain the surname "Potter" as an UnusualEuphemism that should more accurately be akin to "Undertaker" -- the idea is that both play in the dirt.) Harry often pursues his necromancer heritage in order to [[spoiler:[[HesJustHiding bring back Sirius]]]].
* ''Harry Merges with His Horcrux'': This often allows him to unlock his "Dark" powers. In many cases, his personality does a complete 180, and there will often be physical changes as well.
* ''Finding Your Wand'': There's a wand out there that allows every witch and wizard to make the most of their magic, and if you find it, you can unlock greater power than you ever dreamed. Harry's already got his (what with its special connection to Voldemort's), but other characters like Neville and Ron get hand-me-downs. In these stories, Harry helps Neville (and sometimes Ron, but ''always'' Neville) get a wand that actually works for him and helps him realise his potential as a powerful wizard. (In canon, Ron gets his own wand at the beginning of the third book, and Neville gets his at the beginning of the sixth.)
* ''Luna the {{Seer|s}}'': Luna can see the future. That's why so much of what she says doesn't make much sense. If you can understand what the hell she's saying, you can find the answer to any question.
* ''Voldemort Gets a Makeover'': Voldemort finds a way to restore [[MrFanservice the good looks of his youth]] after decades of being a [[RedRightHand bald, pale, red-eyed monstrosity]]. It's almost always done in fics that {{ship|ping}} him with someone, either because [[HeelFaceTurn he turns good]] or [[FaceHeelTurn a good guy turns evil]]. Let's face it: [[SelfFanservice no one wants to make out with a red-eyed snake-face]]. Sometimes it's [[FanWank explained]] that he looks like a snake on purpose, as a result of some animagus- or metamorphmagus-related magic, and that he did so to get his followers to deify him as a superhuman and be less distracted by his good looks (not that this apparently dissuaded [[MonsterFangirl Bellatrix]]).
* ''Lucius Malfoy Owns the Government'': Any position of power is held or controlled by Lucius Malfoy, who has [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney so much money he can do anything]]. This usually involves ignorance of canon, showing him as a member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors (which he was, but was kicked out after the events of ''Chamber of Secrets''), the Wizengamot (which he was ''not'', as established by ''Order of the Phoenix''), or any number of positions during ''Half-Blood Prince'', during which he was in Azkaban or a fugitive therefrom.
* ''Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort's NumberTwo'': Lucius Malfoy is portrayed as Voldemort's right-hand man and even takes over the Death Eaters after Voldemort is gone. However, this kind of misapprehends his canonical position in the organisation; while he ''is'' probably the most prominent of the Death Eaters we see, Voldemort doesn't particularly trust him. After all, he screws up the operation in ''Chamber of Secrets'', is called out on his loyalty in ''Goblet of Fire'', and straight-up defects in ''Deathly Hallows''.
* ''Hedwig the Phoenix'': Hedwig is not actually a snowy owl, but a phoenix. Because an ordinary owl, even one as useful and loyal as Hedwig, just isn't ''cool'' enough for your story's protagonist. It's usually accomplished by her either having a magical disguise, or dying and coming back to life in her true form.
* ''The Cool {{Familiar}}'': Witches and wizards have familiars with cool powers and abilities. But they ''have'' to be an owl, cat, or toad, as the Hogwarts rules stated back in ''Philosopher's Stone''. While this is a common magical trope, it doesn't actually apply to ''Harry Potter''; while the typical pets ''are'' traditionally thought of as familiars, they're just pets, nothing more. Meanwhile, the series also shows pets other than owls, cats, or toads, like Ron's rat and Lee Jordan's tarantula. Ironically, the closest thing the canon has to a magical familiar is Filch's cat Mrs Norris.
* ''The Mystical Veil''. The veil through which Sirius falls is never adequately explained in canon, making it prime FanficFuel. In some cases, it's a portal to another universe, providing fodder for a {{Crossover}}. (They [[CommonCrossover especially love]] ''Franchise/StarWars'', for whatever reason.) In other cases, it sends you back in time, usually to the time of ''Philosopher's Stone'' -- that particular one was popularised by ''Fanfic/OhGodNotAgain'', even though it was [[UnbuiltTrope a parody of that particular idea]].
* ''Neville Lestrange'': Neville is [[LukeIAmYourFather a Lestrange]] who was kidnapped from his real parents by [[RonTheDeathEater Frank and Alice Longbottom]] during the first war. In retaliation, the Lestranges tortured Frank and Alice into insanity, but they never got Neville back for whatever reason. There is a "Harfang Longbottom" on [[TangledFamilyTree the Black Family Tree]], so it's possible that Neville is distantly related to the Lestranges, but only in the sense of every pureblood being related to each other.
* ''[=McGonagall=] Sides with Umbridge'': A minor one, but it's surprisingly common -- [=McGonagall=] finds out about Umbridge's Blood Quill (perhaps even from Harry himself) but tells Harry to keep quiet about it. Chalk this one up to misremembering ''Order of the Phoenix''; [=McGonagall=] does tell Harry not to raise a fuss about Umbridge, but that was before the detentions started, and Harry never complained about the Blood Quill to ''anyone'', in part because he wanted to tough it out and felt that complaining would be a sign of capitulation.
* ''The Potter Curse'': A very specific curse that all Potter men will have dark, untameable hair and fall in love with a smart red-headed woman. The main reason this exists is for Harry/Ginny shippers to provide incontrovertible proof (well, in their eyes) that Ginny really is his TrueLove.
* ''Snape's Detention-Date'': Snape sees no distinction between "detention" and "date". Most fics of this kind disregard the fact that this is a ''particularly'' coercive way to engineer a TeacherStudentRomance and would be grossly unethical. However, in the fic, rather than get fired as he should, Snape gets away with it because of ThePowerOfLove.
* ''Lockhart's Detention-Date'': Same thing, but with the inept Professor Lockhart from ''Chamber of Secrets''. In this case, he's canonically kind of a heartthrob with a reputation for power and adventure, if undeserved. The fic will escalate it to the point where he can semi-openly have a relationship with his students (perhaps only with seventh-years, in which case it might even technically be legal). In a few cases, he ''is'' portrayed as a paedophile, which gives Harry and company [[PaedoHunt an excuse to torture and kill him]]; interestingly, this almost never happens to [[DracoInLeatherPants Snape]].
* ''Magical {{Eagleland}}'': A particular variant of "life outside of wizarding Britain" showing wizarding America as a brilliant land of freedom. It has none of the blood prejudice of wizarding Britain, nor any of those pesky restrictions like laws forbidding teenagers from using magic outside of school. This one got OutdatedByCanon thanks to the ''Fantastic Beasts'' films depicting wizarding America as even ''more'' restrictive about these things than Britain, albeit in the 1920s so things may have changed since then.
* ''Who Reads Books Anymore?'': A PatchworkFic where elements invented for the film adaptations are adapted as if they were part of the canon all along -- often unknowingly, suggesting that if the author ''did'' read the books, the allure of the big screen is so strong that the film versions easily supplanted them as the primary source anyway. Expect to see the films' conception of the school's uniforms (which are not colour-coded by house in the books), characters' appearances (Neville's a blond in the books but his actor is not), or certain CharacterTics (Hermione only calls Ron "Ronald" ''once'' in the books but does it more often in the films).
* ''[[RevengeFic Umbridge Gets Her Due]]'': Ridiculously common, as the character is a tremendous HateSink; you'll see this even as a subplot of a fic about something else. Most such plots take their cues from Fred and George's dramatic exit in ''Order of the Phoenix'', involving them leaving the school in a state of chaos; this will escalate to characters pulling pranks on her over the course of an entire year, often {{Gaslighting}} her and turning her into TheParanoiac. An alternative is to have a RulesLawyer student who [[BotheringByTheBook beats her at her own game]], even if Umbridge [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem changes the rules to her advantage]] -- the holy grail is if said character can use their rule-fu to have her removed from her position and thrown in Azkaban.
* ''Hermione and Scabior'': Set during ''Deathly Hallows'' when Scabior takes Hermione captive, in this fic he either whisks her away from Malfoy Manor or never takes her there to begin with. Then one of four things happens: ''(a)'' he [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rapes her]] but she kills him and escapes; ''(b)'' he rapes her and she [[StockholmSyndrome falls for him]]; ''(c)'' he falls for ''her'' and makes a HeelFaceTurn; or ''(d)'' he falls for her and turns out [[DracoInLeatherPants not to have been that evil to begin with]].
* ''House Elves in Bondage'': The House Elves as a SlaveRace are explained by being magically compelled to bond to a witch or wizard, on pain of losing their magic and dying. This usually explains away Hermione's awkward grandstanding as the only one in the entire series actually lobbying for house elves' freedom. They also often RetCon Dobby as having secretly bound himself to Harry while pretending to be free for Harry's benefit. In some such fics, house elves are portrayed as leeches who work in exchange for magic.
* ''Magical Cores'': The fic introduces the concept of the "magical core", which determines a wizard's PowerLevel. This means that some witches and wizards are just BornLucky and innately more powerful than everyone else. It's very, very often used in "Overpowered Harry" fics to justify his incredible power. It also badly contradicts the canon, in which no such thing exists and a witch or wizard's magic is determined almost entirely by their own knowledge and skill.
----
!!Alternate Universes:
* ''[[LetsWatchOurShowPlot Reading the Books]]'': Characters read the books and comment on them. Most commonly they're given the {{MST}} treatment, especially by characters like the Marauders who would be good at that sort of thing. Other variations include Umbridge reading them out loud to the entire Great Hall, Snape reading them and realising he misunderstood Harry all along, or the entire Order reading them during ''Order of the Phoenix'' to find out what to do next.
* ''[[OhCrapThereAreFanficsOfUs Reading the Fanfics]]'': Characters read other fanfics, including classics like ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' ([[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6829906/1/Hogwarts-Reads-My-Immortal here]]) and ''Fanfic/BecomingFemale'' ([[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8561343/1/Hogwarts-Reads-Becoming-Female here]]).
* ''MentalTimeTravel'': Characters travel to another era and comment on it. This could be to their own pasts, to as far back as the Dumbledore-Grindelwald era of the 1940s, or even to see the Hogwarts founders in the 10th century. Unlike your usual PeggySue plot, this is just commentary; the characters can't change anything.
* ''The Future Founders'': Characters travel back to the Founders' era but ''do'' interact with the timeline. This allows Harry to become either Godric Gryffindor or Salazar Slytherin, and his companions might become the other founders as well.
* ''Hermione Redeems the Marauders'': Hermione goes back in time to the Marauders' era and falls in love with one of the characters from then, usually Remus, Sirius, or Snape. It had a brief but torrid run of popularity circa 2005-07, with such fics usually never exploring the implications of Hermione's presence in the era other than for [[CoitusEnsues sexytimes]].
* ''LoveRedeems Voldemort'': A character (usually female, but not always) goes back in time and falls in love with Tom Riddle before he becomes Voldemort. Tom never becomes Voldemort and instead [[RedemptionEqualsSex has lots of sex]]. It started as a way to ship him with Ginny without the problem of him being destined to turn evil, but since then Hermione became the redeemer of choice.
* ''Slytherin Returns, and He's Harry'': Similar to ''Slytherin Returns'' fics, but this time rather than serve as the villain, he's {{reincarnat|ion}}ed as Harry himself -- will all the memory access, skill acquisition, and personality adjustments it implies. Slytherin is now TallDarkAndSnarky, and [[DracoInLeatherPants no longer a racist prick]]. Existence of the basilisk is {{justified|Trope}} or {{handwave}}d. Again, Harry's companions can similarly take the place of the other founders.
* ''A Veela Must MateOrDie'': A Veela has a [[StrangledByTheRedString predermined mate]] (and it's always called a "mate"), and they're magically compelled to seek that person out and... well, [[CoitusEnsues mate]]. Even if they're already in a relationship with someone else. Originally done to pair Harry and Fleur despite Fleur already being married to Bill, it quickly became fodder for "Male Veela Draco" fics, allowing Draco to be paired up with damn near anyone, but often [[FoeYayShipping Hermione]]. In the relatively rare event that the chosen "mate" isn't too keen on such a relationship, the fic will introduce an ancient magical law to force their hand.
* ''Harry the Slytherin'': Harry is sorted into Slytherin, probably because it would have been canon had Harry not requested otherwise. (He ''could'' be sorted into other houses, but that's much less common.) If he's in Slytherin, expect the "light and dark" dichotomy to be played for all it's worth; Harry's personality does a 180, Draco is now [[DracoInLeatherPants Harry's best friend]], and Ron and the other Gryffindors are [[RonTheDeathEater dumb jocks who hate Harry because he's "Dark"]]. The more "interesting" alternative is for Slytherin!Harry to wrestle with Draco for control of the house, creating a new dimension to their existing rivalry.
* ''Hermione the Slytherin'': Hermione is sorted into Slytherin, which doesn't make much sense (she admits in canon that ''her'' decision was between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw), but there you go. Here, she becomes best friends with Draco Malfoy and then [[{{Shipping}} becomes a little bit more]].
* ''Hermione the Pureblood'': Hermione finds out she's not really a Muggleborn and actually a Pureblooded witch. The UnfortunateImplications are immediately striking -- in canon, Hermione is an extraordinary witch ''despite'' being Muggleborn, but some writers [[MisaimedFandom can't imagine that level of power without pure blood]]. Indeed, in many cases the discovery of her pureblood heritage includes a set of powers that make her even ''more'' accomplished than in canon. It's also a way to ship her with notorious pureblood supremacist Draco Malfoy, as her new family is now in the same aristocratic sphere and Draco suddenly wants to impress her. (The other variant is for her new family to ''be'' the Malfoys, in which case she's Malfoy's long-lost twin sister.) Finally, she often gets a totally new aristocratic style, allowing her [[UnnecessaryMakeover new appearance]] and [[CostumePorn especially her clothing]] to be described in loving detail -- this, along with her drastic yet inevitable personality change, makes one wonder why the author didn't just make an OriginalCharacter.
* ''Marriage Law Fics'': Some magical law or other compels two characters to get hitched. It's a ridiculously common way of accomplishing the {{shipping}} that fanfic writers so adore, and there are accordingly many subgenres:
** ''Magical Genetic Diversity'': The marriage laws exist as a way of fighting Purebloods' inbreeding tendency. In addition to genetic diversity, it allows for a greater pool of future witches and wizards, especially given the possibility of a Pureblooded couple producing a Squib. The laws would therefore force Purebloods to marry Half-bloods and Muggleborns. Hermione being a Muggleborn, she's the most common victim, often to pair her with Draco (never mind that in canon she married the Pureblooded Ron)[[note]]if a fic ever addresses this, the idea would be that Malfoy wants Hermione for himself and wants to fight Ron for her. Given how [[DracoInLeatherPants most fanfic writers see Draco]], they usually [[RonTheDeathEater paint Ron as abusive]] and marrying him as a mistake[[/note]]. Interestingly, it means Harry is no longer a marriageable partner for her. Also interestingly, this particular plot element came from a fanfic-writing challenge seeking to pair Hermione with [[UnequalPairing Snape]], who being Half-blooded himself wouldn't really qualify[[note]]but this was before ''Half-Blood Prince'' revealed that he even was Half-blooded, and most writers assumed that as hardcore a Death Eater as he was, he ''had'' to have been a Pureblood[[/note]].
** ''Magically ArrangedMarriage'': The marriage laws allow for families to enter a MagicallyBindingContract betrothing their children to each other, regardless of what the children have to say on the matter. It's most commonly done to explain ''why'' Hermione marries Ron -- his mother did it! And the only one who can save her from her AwfulWeddedLife with Ron is Draco! Or Snape! Or whoever.
** ''Ministry Monitoring'': Not only does the wizarding government establish the pairings (rather than the parties themselves or their families), they will enforce them by law. One fic even included a statute that the marriage must be proven consummated within a certain window of time.
** ''TimeTravel Age Trouble'': Hermione ''ordinarily'' wouldn't be required by law to marry someone until she's an adult, but unfortunately for her, her extensive use of the Time Turner in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' means that she's aged a year and a half and technically reached the marriageable age before she graduates from Hogwarts. (Never mind that she only used it to take extra classes, which adds up to two weeks ''at most'', and it would be cancelled out anyway by the time she spent petrified in ''Chamber of Secrets'').
** ''The Marriage Stone'': A magical artifact declares that two characters are soul mates. From there, they must be married and live together in private quarters. Even if they hate each other -- [[SlapSlapKiss they won't by the end]], you can be sure. It can be combined with ''Magical Cores'', suggesting that the "cores" themselves dictate this compatibility, in this case allowing the [[LauncherOfAThousandShips uber-powerful Harry]] to be paired with whichever lady is powerful enough to match him (Ginny, Hermione, Luna, [[APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy or all of the above]]).
* ''The Wrong Boy-Who-Lived'': Voldemort marks one child as the ChosenOne, but the wizarding world mistakenly identifies else. This usually happens because Harry has a sibling, often a twin (if only because it keeps the timeline straight). Either Harry is mistakenly identified and his sibling is the ''real'' ChosenOne, or Harry's sibling is marked as the "Child Who Lived" and Harry himself has to prove his chops. In the latter case, a common subgenre sees Harry run away from home and enter a ''Voldemort Adopts Harry'' story.
* ''[[RoleSwapAU Neville, the Boy-Who-Lived]]'': Neville Longbottom is the Boy-Who-Lived and not Harry Potter. This one comes partly from canon; Dumbledore acknowledges this as a possibility, given that both Harry and Neville could have fulfilled the prophecy. Voldemort just chose Harry instead of Neville, but Dumbledore briefly muses on what the world would be like if Voldemort had chosen Neville instead, which was easy FanficFuel.
* ''Harry's Parents Live -- and They're Not So Great'': After all, if Harry's parents lived and they were awesome, there'd be no tension and no story. In this case, the Potters either fall into the "I hate darkness" trap and clash with a young Harry who's pulled in the Slytherin direction, or (for whatever reason) they ''still'' [[InSpiteOfANail dump him with the Dursleys]] and pretend to be dead.
* ''Hermione Down Under'': FanficFuel derived from Hermione's canon decision to protect her Muggle parents from Voldemort by [[LaserGuidedAmnesia wiping their memories]] and convincing them to move to Australia. In these fics, Hermione goes down there (either alone or with her LoveInterest) to retrieve them and complications arise. In some cases, she can't restore their memories but befriends them all over again. In others, she finds that in the meantime they've had another daughter named "Hermione".
* ''Hermione's {{First Period|Panic}}'': Surprisingly common, but almost always a joke.
----
!!Pre-Canon Era:
* ''Founders Fics'': Set during the era of the Hogwarts founders, a whole sub-genre unto itself:
** ''The Marauders Before the Marauders'': The Founders are portrayed similarly to the Marauders, best friends until other events intervene and force them into a [[BreakingTheFellowship falling-out]]. While they do have their own personalities distinct from the Marauders[[note]]Ravenclaw is typically a BrainyBrunette and sometimes a RichBitch; Hufflepuff is a blonde, motherly, [[CountryMouse closer-to-Earth farm girl]], Gryffindor is TheCape (or an IdiotHero if you take the other side), and Slytherin is TallDarkAndSnarky (or a SmugSnake if you take the other side). While these were mostly developed in fanfic, they do have ''some'' basis in canon[[/note]], they tend to spend so much of their time just hanging out that it becomes kind of implausible for them to be ''scholars'' who might reasonably found a school. Much like the Marauders, it's one member of the group who's the catalyst for the falling-out. (While the books do say that Slytherin left the rest of the group, it's far from clear exactly how it went down in canon.)
** ''Slytherin the Pragmatist'': Slytherin was ''not'' a Pureblood supremacist, but lived at a time when {{Witch Hunt}}s and Viking raids were a thing. He built the Chamber of Secrets and introduced the basilisk as a weapon of last resort. It was only his descendants who twisted its purpose to their own ends.
** ''Forbidden Founder Love'': Gryffindor and Slytherin were [[SlashFic much closer]] than history remembers, but their relationship wasn't accepted by their peers. Slytherin eventually chose to leave to preserve Gryffindor's reputation, having accepted that being a Parselmouth he was already [[DarkIsNotEvil "Dark"]].
* ''Gellert "{{Godwin|sLaw}}" Grindelwald'': Grindelwald is identified with UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, given that they were contemporaries and had similarly odious racist and expansionist ideologies. While that parallel was indeed intentional, the degree is a matter of... well, fanfic. And fanfic being what it is, it likes to focus on Grindelwald's relationship with Dumbledore. In some "manipulative Dumbledore" stories, Dumbledore is the bad guy, [[DracoInLeatherPants Grindelwald was just trying to calm him down]], and history -- being WrittenByTheWinners -- attributed Dumbledore's atrocities to Grindelwald. (That one was largely OutdatedByCanon thanks to the ''Fantastic Beasts'' films.) Another variant is for Grindelwald to have been TheWoobie and ArmouredClosetGay, and his inability to accept his homosexuality is what turned him evil. (And Dumbledore "won" the Elder Wand from him with a KissOfDistraction.)
* ''Lily, the Marauders' Match'': The Marauders weren't the real prankster kings of Hogwarts -- that honour goes to Lily Evans and her band of female friends. It lends itself very well to {{shipping}}, especially when Lily's group includes a bookish and soft-spoken girl (paired with Remus) and a beautiful and outgoing girl (paired with Sirius). Before ''Order of the Phoenix'', Arabella Figg was often plugged into the latter role as an OCStandIn; after this was contradicted by the canon, that honour went to Marlene [=McKinnon=], a friend of Lily's mentioned once in canon as someone who died in the First War and whose death really rattled Lily.
* ''Peter Who?'': A fic focusing on the Marauders that makes little mention, if any, of Peter Pettigrew, who eventually betrayed the group. The canon series paints him as such an unpleasant character that fanfic writers have trouble writing him without disrupting the Marauders' feel. (Notice how the above subgenre doesn't invent a girl to ship with Peter.)
* ''Late for Hogwarts, but Early for Canon'': A subgenre of the ''Late for Hogwarts'' story, this time with a new student who joins in the Marauders' era. This new student immediately befriends all the positive characters, helps Lily and James get together, and hooks up herself with either Sirius or Remus (depending on whom the author has a crush on).
----
!!Post-Canon Era:
* ''Dudley's Child Gets a Hogwarts Letter'': ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, and easily contemplated by the setting's rules. Indeed, Creator/JKRowling considered it herself, but decided against it.
----
!!{{Crossover}}s:
* ''CanonForeigner Adopts Harry'': Here, the entity who saves Harry from the Dursleys is outside the canon entirely. This usually allows Harry to pick up special powers from the other universe. It almost always makes him a hypercompetent [[SuperIntelligence genius]] ChickMagnet who points out and eliminates everything [[AuthorTract the author doesn't like]] about the ''Harry Potter'' universe. The UrExample is ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheInvincibleTechnomage'', which plays it straight as an arrow; contrast ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'', which was explicitly written to {{subvert|edTrope}} it.
* ''CanonForeigner Reincarnates as Harry'': This allows Harry to go through the series with all the memories and skills the other character picked up through the course of ''their'' work.
* ''Series/{{Doctor|Who}} Harry'': A crossover with ''Series/DoctorWho'', in which two things will inevitably happen: the Doctor will be surprised by Hermione's Time Turner, and if the Doctor is in his tenth incarnation, he will [[ActorAllusion be mistaken]] for Barty Crouch Jr.
* ''Hogwarts AU'': A TransplantedCharacterFic in which the characters from another fandom are dropped into ''Harry Potter'''s "[[ExtranormalInstitute fantasy boarding school]]" setting, and de-aged as necessary. Expect the main characters of the ''Harry Potter'' 'verse to be in the background, if they're around at all.
* ''Harry Potter and the Olympians'': There is a truly enormous number of fanfics in which [[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson]] or his friends come to teach or study at Hogwarts.
* ''Harry, TheGrimReaper'': Harry has united the Deathly Hallows and assumed the mantle of Master of Death -- including its responsibilities. He then becomes a DimensionalTraveler, addressing the soul-transporting needs of whichever other universe needs him. While he often discovers that he gets a serious power boost from the Hallows, possibly including CompleteImmortality, and usually has [[PowerCreepPowerSeep whichever abilities he needs]] to survive his new universe, he also finds that he can [[BusmansHoliday never take a break]] or [[ClingyMacGuffin get rid of the Hallows]].
* ''The {{Ultimate Showdown|OfUltimateDestiny}} Against Voldemort'': Dumbledore wanders into your favourite FightingSeries to recruit any superhuman he can to fight against Voldemort. Bonus points if the character is young enough (or [[Really700YearsOld looks young enough]]) to actually pass for a Hogwarts student. It most commonly takes place during ''Order of the Phoenix'', which additionally allows for particularly HotBlooded {{Canon Foreigner}}s to chafe under Umbridge's administration and use the opportunity to rip her a new one.
[[/folder]]
----
!!'''NewsParody'''
What I hoped to clean up:
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots of "also" and the like)
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from this location wrote this particular example"
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description, because that detail should be in the example section. Examples in the description like that give the false impression that they're "special" in some way.
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other, and most news parodies focus on the local politics. It's not a strict order, though.
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to be an example. It doesn't appear to be a parody, just an InUniverse NewsBroadcast. I might be wrong, though -- it's just that the example didn't say so.
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't seem to be a high priority. I mean, I know it's trivial, but I just had to say it :)
Proposed revision:
----
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented with a [[{{Satire}} satiric and snide tone]]. It may be a show's entire premise or a single segment within a SketchComedy (like ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Weekend Update").
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not, it's a variant known as "faux news", like ''Series/TheDayToday'' -- the stories are done InTheStyleOf real news stories and spoof the array of NewsTropes. If it does report actual news stories, it usually intersperses its reporting with jokes and commentary that you wouldn't get from a real NewsBroadcast. Over time, some viewers have come to prefer getting their news from News Parodies over "real" news outlets (which most News Parodies themselves don't recommend -- they might be factual, but their breadth of coverage is too limited).
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
----
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,7 (click to see context) from:
This is my sandbox. This is a test of my sandbox. This sandbox is to be used for stuff.
In some cases, there might be ''italics'' or '''bold''' things in the sandbox.
There might also be {{pothole}}s in the sandbox, perhaps to [[Film/AttackOfTheClones entities]] who have a particular dislike of sand.
Does it work? We shall see. But it would appear so.
In some cases, there might be ''italics'' or '''bold''' things in the sandbox.
There might also be {{pothole}}s in the sandbox, perhaps to [[Film/AttackOfTheClones entities]] who have a particular dislike of sand.
Does it work? We shall see. But it would appear so.
to:
This is my sandbox. This is a test Here I shall preview large-scale changes to certain pages that catch my attention.
!!'''NewsParody'''
What I hoped to clean up:
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots ofmy sandbox. This sandbox is "also" and the like)
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from this location wrote this particular example"
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description, because that detail should be in the example section. Examples in the description like that give the false impression that they're "special" in some way.
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other, and most news parodies focus on the local politics. It's not a strict order, though.
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to beused for stuff.
In some cases, therean example. It doesn't appear to be a parody, just an InUniverse NewsBroadcast. I might be ''italics'' wrong, though -- it's just that the example didn't say so.
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't seem to be a high priority. I mean, I know it's trivial, but I just had to say it :)
Proposed revision:
----
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not replace or'''bold''' things remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented with a [[{{Satire}} satiric and snide tone]]. It may be a show's entire premise or a single segment within a SketchComedy (like ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Weekend Update").
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not, it's a variant known as "faux news", like ''Series/TheDayToday'' -- the stories are done InTheStyleOf real news stories and spoof the array of NewsTropes. If it does report actual news stories, it usually intersperses its reporting with jokes and commentary that you wouldn't get from a real NewsBroadcast. Over time, some viewers have come to prefer getting their news from News Parodies over "real" news outlets (which most News Parodies themselves don't recommend -- they might be factual, but their breadth of coverage is too limited).
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
[[AC:United Kingdom]]
* ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'', a pioneering satirical show that lampooned current events in its sketches. Made in UsefulNotes/TheSixties, its style of political satire was totally unknown and revolutionary, leading to many viewer complaints, even though [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it was fairly tame by our standards]]. The British original (1962-63) and the American remake (1964-65) were both fronted by Creator/DavidFrost.
* ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews'', a British show from UsefulNotes/TheEighties and one of the earliest dedicated news parody shows, which aired at 9 PM on Creator/{{BBC}}2 directly opposite the real ''Nine O'Clock News'' on [=BBC1=]. It directly inspired a TransatlanticEquivalent in ''Series/NotNecessarilyTheNews'', which itself became one of the earliest dedicated news parody shows in thesandbox.
There might also be {{pothole}}sU.S.
* ''Series/TheDayToday'', a British "faux news" show by Creator/ChrisMorris (adapted from the radio show ''On the Hour'') that told absurd news stories in thesandbox, perhaps same professional and deadpan style as real news reporting. Morris would later spin it into ''Series/BrassEye'', which was a similar spoof of the PrimeTimeNews format.
* ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'' is a news parody in PanelShow format, considered to[[Film/AttackOfTheClones entities]] who be the TropeMaker of the British style of news parody. Real journalists and politicians are frequent contestants; the show was largely responsible for thrusting then little-known MP UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson into the national spotlight.
* ''Series/MockTheWeek'', a PanelShow in a similar vein to ''Have I Got News for You''. It's hosted by Creator/DaraOBriain and considered sort of DarkerAndEdgier.
* ''Series/TopGear'' includes a news segment about cars. It has evolved from the presenters [[TwoGamersOnACouch sitting on furniture scavenged from cars]] and quickly running through relevant car news to the presenters poking fun at anything driving-related news -- and each other.
* ''Broken News'' is a "faux news" show that's the SpiritualSuccessor to ''The Sunday Format'', a radio series by the same writers. It cuts between snippets of different styles of NewsBroadcast -- ''e.g.'' local BBC news broadcasts, national BBC News broadcasts (where the presenters keep interrupting each other), ITV News broadcasts (and their overuse of fancy graphics), and [[{{Eagleland}} American news broadcasts]] (and their particularly oblivious hosts). The segments are intercut by a bored viewer flicking between channels.
* ''Series/DropTheDeadDonkey'' was technically a WorkCom, but it was set in a newsroom and eagerly spoofed current events, so it essentially functioned as a news parody. It had a very tight, ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''-esque production schedule that allowed it to be very topical as well.
[[AC:United States]]
* The "Weekend Update" segments of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' are the TropeMaker, having been part of the show since the very first episode in 1975. It spoofs your average nightly NewsBroadcast, with one of the cast members recurring as a news anchor reading ridiculous stories, some of which are real and some of which are not. ''SNL'' also occasionally did sketches spoofing specific real news programs like ''Series/TheMcLaughlinGroup'' and anchors like Creator/TomBrokaw.
* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' is a [[LongRunners long-running]] news parody on Creator/ComedyCentral. It hit its stride under its longtime host Creator/JonStewart in the 2000s, particularly lampooning America under UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush. It's sufficiently informative to have won ''journalistic'' awards (even as Stewart insisted that he's a comedian, not a journalist); many, many Americans trusted ''The Daily Show'' more than actual news networks.[[note]]Indeed, the appetite for this level of reporting was so strong that two ''Daily Show'' alums, Creator/JohnOliver and Creator/SamanthaBee, went on to host their own shows (''Series/LastWeekTonight'' and ''Series/FullFrontalWithSamanthaBee'', respectively) that don't even really count as news parodies -- just humorous but hard-hitting and in-depth reporting on real news.[[/note]] It's even been aired on genuine news networks outside the United States; the page quote preceded such airings to clarify that it was, in fact, a news parody. Since Stewart stepped down in 2015, it has been hosted by Creator/TrevorNoah.
* ''Series/TheColbertReport'' was a SpinOff of ''The Daily Show'' hosted by Creator/StephenColbert playing a parody of a [[PompousPoliticalPundit blowhard conservative pundit]]. Derived from a ''Daily Show'' segment where Colbert openly spoofed ''Series/TheOReillyFactor'', it was highly popular in its day and essentially formed a pair with ''The Daily Show'', with ''The Colbert Report'' airing immediately afterwards. The show ended in 2014 when Colbert left to host ''Series/TheLateShow'', but Colbert will still occasionally break out his "conservative blowhard" persona on the latter show.
* ''Series/TheNightlyShow'' was a parody of a political panel show hosted by ''Daily Show'' alum Creator/LarryWilmore. It aired in ''The Colbert Report'''s former slot after Colbert left to host ''The Late Show'' but was short-lived.
* ''Series/TheJeselnikOffensive'' was a BlackComedy news parody on Creator/ComedyCentral, hosted by infamously harsh comedian Anthony Jeselnik and mostly dedicated to mocking deaths and other tragic news stories.
* ''Crossballs'' was a short-lived Creator/ComedyCentral parody of a political debate show, usually pitting actual experts against a revolving cast of comedians. The name was a {{portmanteau}} of the former Creator/{{CNN}} debate show ''Crossfire''[[note]]which was canceled two weeks after Creator/JonStewart, host of ''Series/TheDailyShow'', went on the program and excorciated the hosts for their unprofessional and needlessly hostile approach to political debate[[/note]] and Creator/{{MSNBC}}'s ''Hardball''.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on the Creator/FoxNewsChannel -- a channel that's long been a target of ''other'' news parodies. Fox News had tried to hit back for years, and its first offering, ''The Half-Hour News Hour'', only lasted a few months before being unceremoniously canceled. ''Red Eye'' was much more successful and became one of Fox News's top-rated shows. It has a reputation for absurdism and being somewhere between a news parody, "faux news", and a fake pundit show -- think ''Series/TheView'' if it had a decidedly CampGay bias. Gutfeld left the show in 2015 to host ''Series/TheGregGutfeldShow'' on the same channel, a straighter TalkShow but with frequent news parody segments.
[[AC:Australia]]
* ''Series/TheChasersWarOnEverything'' is an UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}n news parody by comedy troupe Creator/TheChaser. While not their only news parody, it's easily the best known. It's most famous for the hosts {{Bavarian Fire Drill}}ing their way through a series of security checks to the entrance of George W. Bush's hotel at the 2007 APEC conference in Sydney. The Chaser's next most famous effort is its Creator/{{CNN}} parody ''Series/{{CNNNN}}''.
* One of the regular segments of ''Series/Studio3'' is a news parody with kids as the anchors -- but still pretending to be decrepit, old-fashioned news presenters.
* "ANNNN" (standing for "Australian National Nightly Network News") was a recurring sketch on ''Series/FullFrontal''. It started out as a series of short one-liners about the week's events, but it quickly evolved into a complete parody news report with a recurring cast of characters.
[[AC:Canada]]
* ''Series/ThisHourHas22Minutes'' is a [[LongRunners long-running]] news parody show on Creator/{{CBC}} that at times was as influential in Canada as ''The Daily Show'' was in the United States. Its name is a reference to ''This Hour Has Seven Days'', a short-lived but hard-hitting Canadian news show from UsefulNotes/TheSixties.
* ''Series/TheRickMercerReport'' is a SpinOff of ''This Hour Has 22 Minutes'' hosted by Rick Mercer. It combines the news parody with the TravelogueShow, as Mercer would often visit places across Canada and interview people there. (And occasionally visit the U.S. and show how little Americans know about Canada.) In the process, Mercer got to interview a plethora of high-ranking Canadian political figures.
* ''Series/JimmyMacDonaldsCanada'' is a news parody set in TheSixties and starring Creator/RichardWaugh.
* ''Infoman'' and ''La Fin du Monde est à Sept Heures'' (lit. "The End of the World is at Seven O'Clock") are French-language shows that are part news parody and part general silliness.
[[AC:France]]
* ''Series/LesGuignolsDeLInfo'' is a news parody using puppets -- the ''guignol'' is a specific kind of puppet that was commonly used in French satire in the 19th century, although it also owes a lot to the British ''Series/SpittingImage'', which lampooned celebrities with puppets but wasn't strictly a news parody. It aired at 8 PM at the same time as the real news on other channels, and its host was based on a real news anchor who worked for years on another channel. Highly influential in the 1990s and 2000s, it was even credited with helping Jacques Chirac get elected President in 1995.
* ''Groland'' was a satirical show about a fake country known as "Groland" but which had very many obvious parallels to contemporary France. The earliest incarnations of the show especially took the form of fake news shows.
[[AC:Others]]
* In Italy, ''Striscia la Notizia'' is a daily news parody which manages to make very serious points, having been influential in exposing local cases of corruption and fraud which don't usually appear on the "real" news programs.
* In Germany, ''Series/HeuteShow'' has been the premier news parody since 2009, mostly resembling ''The Daily Show''. It's the SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/DieWochenshow'', which spoofed a greater variety of news formats like talk shows.
%%* The Philippines had the ''Sic O' Clock News'' and ''Wazzup Wazzup''.
%% I don't know where to put this. By "news/media portal", is it on TV or on the Internet?* Indian news/media commentary portal ''Newslaundry'' has a series known as ''Clothesline'', where the anchor, veteran journalist Madhu Trehan does this for news media, mostly television, crossing over with {{MST}}, by adding her own commentary. A more actual news parody is the series ''Newslaundry Lite''.
* In Israel, ''Eretz Nehederet'' runs almost entirely on this format. It alternates between mocking remarks about recent events in the style of "Weekend Update", interviews with actors playing public figures, and parody news reports.
* In Argentina, ''Caiga Quien Caiga'' (lit. "Whoever May Fall") was a popular news parody which targeted local politicians. It was popular enough to be exported to Spain and Brazil -- in the latter country, it's called ''Custe o Que Custar'' (lit. "Whatever It Takes") to preserve the acronym.
* In Spain, ''Series/ElIntermedio'' evolved from the Spanish version of ''Caiga Quien Caiga''. It started out as a general satirical show and evolved into a semi-serious "anti-establishment news show" that still has satirical elements to it.
* In Chile, ''Series/TreintaYUnMinutos'' is part news parody, part WorkCom, all puppets. It actually started as a genuine EdutainmentShow to educate kids about current events, but quickly evolved into a satire with a surprisingly dark sense of humor. It became popular throughout Latin America, although not everyone understood the Chilean slang.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Music]]
* Music/LouReed's [[Music/NewYork1989 "Sick Of You"]], which the book ''Between Thought And Expression: Selected Lyrics of Lou Reed'' described as a "fantasy newscast."
-->"All the beaches were closed, the ocean was a red sea\\
But there was no one there to part it in two\\
There was no fresh salad, 'cause there's hypos in the cabbage\\
Staten Island disappeared at noon\\
And they say the Midwest is in great distress\\
And UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} blew up the moon\\
The ozone layer has no ozone anymore\\
[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And you're gonna leave me for the guy next door?]]"
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/TheNewsQuiz'' is a PanelShow on Creator/{{BBC}} Radio 4 that's been [[LongRunners running since 1977]]. While structurally a comedy show, the contestants are tasked to make fun of specific news stories from that week (for [[ThePointsMeanNothing points that mean nothing]]). Contestants also get to read outlandish news clippings, many of which are [[AudienceParticipation submitted by the audience]] and come from obscure local papers. Although the contestants are usually comedians, sometimes they're politicians, too. It's a major influence on ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', which debuted on TV thirteen years later. It also spawned a TransatlanticEquivalent on Creator/{{NPR}} called ''Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe'', one of the very few examples of a radio PanelShow in the United States.
* ''Radio/TheNowShow'', like ''The News Quiz'', airs on BBC Radio but is a much more straightforward news parody. Hosted by comedians Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt, the panelists will thoroughly mock a news story of their choice, often with a musical segment.
* ''Radio/RoyalCanadianAirFarce'' started out as a radio satire on Creator/{{CBC}} Radio in 1973 and was sufficiently popular to hop to television twenty years later. It included news parody sketches and was very influential to subsequent Canadian news parodies.
* ''Radio/ThisIsThat'' is a "faux news" radio show on Creator/{{CBC}} Radio and a parody of the real CBC radio news show ''Radio/AsItHappens''. It's a StealthParody that reports outrageously false news stories in total deadpan professionalism, leading to listeners taking it seriously and angrily phoning in to voice their opinions. Then the show would air recordings of its favourite outraged callers.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/TheOnion'' started out as a parodic newspaper but really hit its stride in [[http://www.theonion.com/ website]] form. This allowed it to spoof every angle of the NewsBroadcast, including audio and video, allowing it to parody radio and TV news. Its slick presentation and graphics have meant that [[PoesLaw it's been mistaken for a real news outlet]], even by ''actual'' news outlets. Its popularity in America has led to [[FollowTheLeader a ton of derivatives in other countries]], including:
** ''Website/NewsBiscuit'', essentially ''The Onion'' in Britain. Very similar stylistically, but not as popular.
** ''Website/TheBeaverton'', the Canadian version. It has a particulardislike focus on Canadian culture and politics, and it's quick to pander to [[CanadaEh Canadian stereotypes]].
** ''Website/MinistryOfHarmony'', a self-proclaimed "Chinese ''Onion''". While it's written in English, it's specifically a spoof ofsand.
Doesnews in the notoriously stifling [[UsefulNotes/{{China}} People's Republic of China]].
** ''Website/LeGorafi'', the French version. Its name is derived from the French newspaper of record ''Le Figaro''.
** ''Website/TheBetootaAdvocate'', the Australian version. It's got a little help from TV series ''Series/MediaWatch'', which showcases the shortcomings of Australian media and will quite eagerly tell the world when they've caught the media taking ''The Betoota Advocate'' seriously.
* The ''Website/BabylonBee'' is a "faux news" website from an American conservative and Evangelical Christian angle. Lefties don't know what to make of it; some think itwork? We shall see. But can be ActuallyPrettyFunny, but others [[PoesLaw have taken it would appear so.seriously]] in much the same way right-wingers believe ''The Onion''. This might be why the ''Bee'' has a bizarre SitcomArchNemesis relationship with left-leaning website Website/{{Snopes}}, which cannot resist "fact-checking" even its most ridiculous articles.
* ''[[http://www.borowitzreport.com/ The Borowitz Report]]'' is a popular online satirical news outlet. It was bought by ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' in 2012 but still exists as a section of their website, with its satirical news stories written in much the same style as the real ones (which [[PoesLaw easily leads to confusion]]).
* ''Website/KayfabeNews'' is essentially a parody of less reputable ProfessionalWrestling news sites. It's a SpiritualSuccessor to the "Headlines" section on ''Website/WrestleCrap''.
* ''Blog/ElChiguireBipolar'' (lit. "The Bipolar Capybara") is a UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}}n parody news blog. Given the nature of Venezuelan politics, there's a ''lot'' of parody fodder. It also hosted the satirical web animation ''WebAnimation/IslaPresidencial''.
* ''El Deforma'' is a Mexican satirical news website. It juxtaposes "faux news" with real news stories that are so outlandish they ''sound'' fake. It's [[PoesLaw so hard to tell the difference]] that they have to put a NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer on the real stories.
* ''Actualidad Panamericana'' is a Colombian satirical news website. Although not written as strictly a StealthParody, it does have a serious-sounding ''name'', leading to people [[PoesLaw sharing its contents as if they were serious, too]].
* ''[[https://dailyfreier.com/ The Daily Freier]]'' is an Israeli English-language news parody website. It focuses particularly on satirizing the culture of Tel Aviv, especially recently immigrated English-speaking Jews. The name "Freier" can be translated as "sucker", originally coming from Yiddish but used in Modern Hebrew.
* ''WebVideo/MockTheDummy'' is a Website/YouTube parody of conservative politics... with dummies.
* ''Website/TheHardTimes'' is a self-proclaimed "''very'' real punk news site" which is actually a parody news website focusing on music, particularly PunkRock and other musical subcultures. It also has several {{Spinoff}}s, including ''Website/HardDrive'' for video game journalism and ''Hard Money'' for business and financial advice.
%%* Spanish comedy/satire website ''El Mundo Today''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheWrongCoast'' presents fake celebrity news through eccentric {{Claymation}} characters.
[[/folder]]
----
!!'''NewsParody'''
What I hoped to clean up:
* Unnecessary sentence fragments (description and examples flow better with complete sentences)
* Natter and improper indentation
* Word cruft (lots of
* Writing in wikivoice, to prevent cases where "obviously some guy from this location wrote this particular example"
* Fleshing out some examples with insufficient descriptions
* Adding links where appropriate
* Removing excessive examples from the description, because that detail should be in the example section. Examples in the description like that give the false impression that they're "special" in some way.
Comments:
* We don't have a Useful Notes page on Boris Johnson? That surprises me. Given the number of redlinks to it on the page for ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', I'll guess that we used to have one but it was deleted. I made the redlink in case we decide to bring it back.
* Tried to arrange by country of origin, in part because it creates something of a continuity -- you can easily see which shows influenced each other, and most news parodies focus on the local politics. It's not a strict order, though.
* Commented out a couple of entries which I didn't know what to do with.
* Put ''Website/TheOnion'''s followers into sub-bullets for ''The Onion'' itself.
* "Radio Free Cybertron" appears not to be
In some cases, there
* I can't fix "InTheStyleOf" so that the link doesn't contain ellipses. Not even if I PotHole it. It looks ugly and breaks the flow of the sentence. I complained about this in a Wiki Talk thread, but it doesn't seem to be a high priority. I mean, I know it's trivial, but I just had to say it :)
Proposed revision:
----
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not replace or
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Website/TheOnion https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/man_walks_on_moon.jpg]]]]
->''"The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its presenters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through."''
-->-- ''Series/TheDailyShow''
News, but presented with a [[{{Satire}} satiric and snide tone]]. It may be a show's entire premise or a single segment within a SketchComedy (like ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Weekend Update").
A news parody may or may not report actual news stories. If it does not, it's a variant known as "faux news", like ''Series/TheDayToday'' -- the stories are done InTheStyleOf real news stories and spoof the array of NewsTropes. If it does report actual news stories, it usually intersperses its reporting with jokes and commentary that you wouldn't get from a real NewsBroadcast. Over time, some viewers have come to prefer getting their news from News Parodies over "real" news outlets (which most News Parodies themselves don't recommend -- they might be factual, but their breadth of coverage is too limited).
See also ShallowNewsSiteSatire, which is a form of News Parody specific to "news" websites that don't really report actual news to begin with. Not to be confused with KentBrockmanNews, a ShowWithinAShow parody of news shows, or the term "Faux News" as a pejorative nickname for Creator/FoxNewsChannel.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
[[AC:United Kingdom]]
* ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'', a pioneering satirical show that lampooned current events in its sketches. Made in UsefulNotes/TheSixties, its style of political satire was totally unknown and revolutionary, leading to many viewer complaints, even though [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it was fairly tame by our standards]]. The British original (1962-63) and the American remake (1964-65) were both fronted by Creator/DavidFrost.
* ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews'', a British show from UsefulNotes/TheEighties and one of the earliest dedicated news parody shows, which aired at 9 PM on Creator/{{BBC}}2 directly opposite the real ''Nine O'Clock News'' on [=BBC1=]. It directly inspired a TransatlanticEquivalent in ''Series/NotNecessarilyTheNews'', which itself became one of the earliest dedicated news parody shows in the
There might also be {{pothole}}s
* ''Series/TheDayToday'', a British "faux news" show by Creator/ChrisMorris (adapted from the radio show ''On the Hour'') that told absurd news stories in the
* ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'' is a news parody in PanelShow format, considered to
* ''Series/MockTheWeek'', a PanelShow in a similar vein to ''Have I Got News for You''. It's hosted by Creator/DaraOBriain and considered sort of DarkerAndEdgier.
* ''Series/TopGear'' includes a news segment about cars. It has evolved from the presenters [[TwoGamersOnACouch sitting on furniture scavenged from cars]] and quickly running through relevant car news to the presenters poking fun at anything driving-related news -- and each other.
* ''Broken News'' is a "faux news" show that's the SpiritualSuccessor to ''The Sunday Format'', a radio series by the same writers. It cuts between snippets of different styles of NewsBroadcast -- ''e.g.'' local BBC news broadcasts, national BBC News broadcasts (where the presenters keep interrupting each other), ITV News broadcasts (and their overuse of fancy graphics), and [[{{Eagleland}} American news broadcasts]] (and their particularly oblivious hosts). The segments are intercut by a bored viewer flicking between channels.
* ''Series/DropTheDeadDonkey'' was technically a WorkCom, but it was set in a newsroom and eagerly spoofed current events, so it essentially functioned as a news parody. It had a very tight, ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''-esque production schedule that allowed it to be very topical as well.
[[AC:United States]]
* The "Weekend Update" segments of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' are the TropeMaker, having been part of the show since the very first episode in 1975. It spoofs your average nightly NewsBroadcast, with one of the cast members recurring as a news anchor reading ridiculous stories, some of which are real and some of which are not. ''SNL'' also occasionally did sketches spoofing specific real news programs like ''Series/TheMcLaughlinGroup'' and anchors like Creator/TomBrokaw.
* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' is a [[LongRunners long-running]] news parody on Creator/ComedyCentral. It hit its stride under its longtime host Creator/JonStewart in the 2000s, particularly lampooning America under UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush. It's sufficiently informative to have won ''journalistic'' awards (even as Stewart insisted that he's a comedian, not a journalist); many, many Americans trusted ''The Daily Show'' more than actual news networks.[[note]]Indeed, the appetite for this level of reporting was so strong that two ''Daily Show'' alums, Creator/JohnOliver and Creator/SamanthaBee, went on to host their own shows (''Series/LastWeekTonight'' and ''Series/FullFrontalWithSamanthaBee'', respectively) that don't even really count as news parodies -- just humorous but hard-hitting and in-depth reporting on real news.[[/note]] It's even been aired on genuine news networks outside the United States; the page quote preceded such airings to clarify that it was, in fact, a news parody. Since Stewart stepped down in 2015, it has been hosted by Creator/TrevorNoah.
* ''Series/TheColbertReport'' was a SpinOff of ''The Daily Show'' hosted by Creator/StephenColbert playing a parody of a [[PompousPoliticalPundit blowhard conservative pundit]]. Derived from a ''Daily Show'' segment where Colbert openly spoofed ''Series/TheOReillyFactor'', it was highly popular in its day and essentially formed a pair with ''The Daily Show'', with ''The Colbert Report'' airing immediately afterwards. The show ended in 2014 when Colbert left to host ''Series/TheLateShow'', but Colbert will still occasionally break out his "conservative blowhard" persona on the latter show.
* ''Series/TheNightlyShow'' was a parody of a political panel show hosted by ''Daily Show'' alum Creator/LarryWilmore. It aired in ''The Colbert Report'''s former slot after Colbert left to host ''The Late Show'' but was short-lived.
* ''Series/TheJeselnikOffensive'' was a BlackComedy news parody on Creator/ComedyCentral, hosted by infamously harsh comedian Anthony Jeselnik and mostly dedicated to mocking deaths and other tragic news stories.
* ''Crossballs'' was a short-lived Creator/ComedyCentral parody of a political debate show, usually pitting actual experts against a revolving cast of comedians. The name was a {{portmanteau}} of the former Creator/{{CNN}} debate show ''Crossfire''[[note]]which was canceled two weeks after Creator/JonStewart, host of ''Series/TheDailyShow'', went on the program and excorciated the hosts for their unprofessional and needlessly hostile approach to political debate[[/note]] and Creator/{{MSNBC}}'s ''Hardball''.
* ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'' is a conservative news parody on the Creator/FoxNewsChannel -- a channel that's long been a target of ''other'' news parodies. Fox News had tried to hit back for years, and its first offering, ''The Half-Hour News Hour'', only lasted a few months before being unceremoniously canceled. ''Red Eye'' was much more successful and became one of Fox News's top-rated shows. It has a reputation for absurdism and being somewhere between a news parody, "faux news", and a fake pundit show -- think ''Series/TheView'' if it had a decidedly CampGay bias. Gutfeld left the show in 2015 to host ''Series/TheGregGutfeldShow'' on the same channel, a straighter TalkShow but with frequent news parody segments.
[[AC:Australia]]
* ''Series/TheChasersWarOnEverything'' is an UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}n news parody by comedy troupe Creator/TheChaser. While not their only news parody, it's easily the best known. It's most famous for the hosts {{Bavarian Fire Drill}}ing their way through a series of security checks to the entrance of George W. Bush's hotel at the 2007 APEC conference in Sydney. The Chaser's next most famous effort is its Creator/{{CNN}} parody ''Series/{{CNNNN}}''.
* One of the regular segments of ''Series/Studio3'' is a news parody with kids as the anchors -- but still pretending to be decrepit, old-fashioned news presenters.
* "ANNNN" (standing for "Australian National Nightly Network News") was a recurring sketch on ''Series/FullFrontal''. It started out as a series of short one-liners about the week's events, but it quickly evolved into a complete parody news report with a recurring cast of characters.
[[AC:Canada]]
* ''Series/ThisHourHas22Minutes'' is a [[LongRunners long-running]] news parody show on Creator/{{CBC}} that at times was as influential in Canada as ''The Daily Show'' was in the United States. Its name is a reference to ''This Hour Has Seven Days'', a short-lived but hard-hitting Canadian news show from UsefulNotes/TheSixties.
* ''Series/TheRickMercerReport'' is a SpinOff of ''This Hour Has 22 Minutes'' hosted by Rick Mercer. It combines the news parody with the TravelogueShow, as Mercer would often visit places across Canada and interview people there. (And occasionally visit the U.S. and show how little Americans know about Canada.) In the process, Mercer got to interview a plethora of high-ranking Canadian political figures.
* ''Series/JimmyMacDonaldsCanada'' is a news parody set in TheSixties and starring Creator/RichardWaugh.
* ''Infoman'' and ''La Fin du Monde est à Sept Heures'' (lit. "The End of the World is at Seven O'Clock") are French-language shows that are part news parody and part general silliness.
[[AC:France]]
* ''Series/LesGuignolsDeLInfo'' is a news parody using puppets -- the ''guignol'' is a specific kind of puppet that was commonly used in French satire in the 19th century, although it also owes a lot to the British ''Series/SpittingImage'', which lampooned celebrities with puppets but wasn't strictly a news parody. It aired at 8 PM at the same time as the real news on other channels, and its host was based on a real news anchor who worked for years on another channel. Highly influential in the 1990s and 2000s, it was even credited with helping Jacques Chirac get elected President in 1995.
* ''Groland'' was a satirical show about a fake country known as "Groland" but which had very many obvious parallels to contemporary France. The earliest incarnations of the show especially took the form of fake news shows.
[[AC:Others]]
* In Italy, ''Striscia la Notizia'' is a daily news parody which manages to make very serious points, having been influential in exposing local cases of corruption and fraud which don't usually appear on the "real" news programs.
* In Germany, ''Series/HeuteShow'' has been the premier news parody since 2009, mostly resembling ''The Daily Show''. It's the SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/DieWochenshow'', which spoofed a greater variety of news formats like talk shows.
%%* The Philippines had the ''Sic O' Clock News'' and ''Wazzup Wazzup''.
%% I don't know where to put this. By "news/media portal", is it on TV or on the Internet?* Indian news/media commentary portal ''Newslaundry'' has a series known as ''Clothesline'', where the anchor, veteran journalist Madhu Trehan does this for news media, mostly television, crossing over with {{MST}}, by adding her own commentary. A more actual news parody is the series ''Newslaundry Lite''.
* In Israel, ''Eretz Nehederet'' runs almost entirely on this format. It alternates between mocking remarks about recent events in the style of "Weekend Update", interviews with actors playing public figures, and parody news reports.
* In Argentina, ''Caiga Quien Caiga'' (lit. "Whoever May Fall") was a popular news parody which targeted local politicians. It was popular enough to be exported to Spain and Brazil -- in the latter country, it's called ''Custe o Que Custar'' (lit. "Whatever It Takes") to preserve the acronym.
* In Spain, ''Series/ElIntermedio'' evolved from the Spanish version of ''Caiga Quien Caiga''. It started out as a general satirical show and evolved into a semi-serious "anti-establishment news show" that still has satirical elements to it.
* In Chile, ''Series/TreintaYUnMinutos'' is part news parody, part WorkCom, all puppets. It actually started as a genuine EdutainmentShow to educate kids about current events, but quickly evolved into a satire with a surprisingly dark sense of humor. It became popular throughout Latin America, although not everyone understood the Chilean slang.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Music]]
* Music/LouReed's [[Music/NewYork1989 "Sick Of You"]], which the book ''Between Thought And Expression: Selected Lyrics of Lou Reed'' described as a "fantasy newscast."
-->"All the beaches were closed, the ocean was a red sea\\
But there was no one there to part it in two\\
There was no fresh salad, 'cause there's hypos in the cabbage\\
Staten Island disappeared at noon\\
And they say the Midwest is in great distress\\
And UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} blew up the moon\\
The ozone layer has no ozone anymore\\
[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And you're gonna leave me for the guy next door?]]"
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/TheNewsQuiz'' is a PanelShow on Creator/{{BBC}} Radio 4 that's been [[LongRunners running since 1977]]. While structurally a comedy show, the contestants are tasked to make fun of specific news stories from that week (for [[ThePointsMeanNothing points that mean nothing]]). Contestants also get to read outlandish news clippings, many of which are [[AudienceParticipation submitted by the audience]] and come from obscure local papers. Although the contestants are usually comedians, sometimes they're politicians, too. It's a major influence on ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', which debuted on TV thirteen years later. It also spawned a TransatlanticEquivalent on Creator/{{NPR}} called ''Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe'', one of the very few examples of a radio PanelShow in the United States.
* ''Radio/TheNowShow'', like ''The News Quiz'', airs on BBC Radio but is a much more straightforward news parody. Hosted by comedians Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt, the panelists will thoroughly mock a news story of their choice, often with a musical segment.
* ''Radio/RoyalCanadianAirFarce'' started out as a radio satire on Creator/{{CBC}} Radio in 1973 and was sufficiently popular to hop to television twenty years later. It included news parody sketches and was very influential to subsequent Canadian news parodies.
* ''Radio/ThisIsThat'' is a "faux news" radio show on Creator/{{CBC}} Radio and a parody of the real CBC radio news show ''Radio/AsItHappens''. It's a StealthParody that reports outrageously false news stories in total deadpan professionalism, leading to listeners taking it seriously and angrily phoning in to voice their opinions. Then the show would air recordings of its favourite outraged callers.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/TheOnion'' started out as a parodic newspaper but really hit its stride in [[http://www.theonion.com/ website]] form. This allowed it to spoof every angle of the NewsBroadcast, including audio and video, allowing it to parody radio and TV news. Its slick presentation and graphics have meant that [[PoesLaw it's been mistaken for a real news outlet]], even by ''actual'' news outlets. Its popularity in America has led to [[FollowTheLeader a ton of derivatives in other countries]], including:
** ''Website/NewsBiscuit'', essentially ''The Onion'' in Britain. Very similar stylistically, but not as popular.
** ''Website/TheBeaverton'', the Canadian version. It has a particular
** ''Website/MinistryOfHarmony'', a self-proclaimed "Chinese ''Onion''". While it's written in English, it's specifically a spoof of
Does
** ''Website/LeGorafi'', the French version. Its name is derived from the French newspaper of record ''Le Figaro''.
** ''Website/TheBetootaAdvocate'', the Australian version. It's got a little help from TV series ''Series/MediaWatch'', which showcases the shortcomings of Australian media and will quite eagerly tell the world when they've caught the media taking ''The Betoota Advocate'' seriously.
* The ''Website/BabylonBee'' is a "faux news" website from an American conservative and Evangelical Christian angle. Lefties don't know what to make of it; some think it
* ''[[http://www.borowitzreport.com/ The Borowitz Report]]'' is a popular online satirical news outlet. It was bought by ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' in 2012 but still exists as a section of their website, with its satirical news stories written in much the same style as the real ones (which [[PoesLaw easily leads to confusion]]).
* ''Website/KayfabeNews'' is essentially a parody of less reputable ProfessionalWrestling news sites. It's a SpiritualSuccessor to the "Headlines" section on ''Website/WrestleCrap''.
* ''Blog/ElChiguireBipolar'' (lit. "The Bipolar Capybara") is a UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}}n parody news blog. Given the nature of Venezuelan politics, there's a ''lot'' of parody fodder. It also hosted the satirical web animation ''WebAnimation/IslaPresidencial''.
* ''El Deforma'' is a Mexican satirical news website. It juxtaposes "faux news" with real news stories that are so outlandish they ''sound'' fake. It's [[PoesLaw so hard to tell the difference]] that they have to put a NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer on the real stories.
* ''Actualidad Panamericana'' is a Colombian satirical news website. Although not written as strictly a StealthParody, it does have a serious-sounding ''name'', leading to people [[PoesLaw sharing its contents as if they were serious, too]].
* ''[[https://dailyfreier.com/ The Daily Freier]]'' is an Israeli English-language news parody website. It focuses particularly on satirizing the culture of Tel Aviv, especially recently immigrated English-speaking Jews. The name "Freier" can be translated as "sucker", originally coming from Yiddish but used in Modern Hebrew.
* ''WebVideo/MockTheDummy'' is a Website/YouTube parody of conservative politics... with dummies.
* ''Website/TheHardTimes'' is a self-proclaimed "''very'' real punk news site" which is actually a parody news website focusing on music, particularly PunkRock and other musical subcultures. It also has several {{Spinoff}}s, including ''Website/HardDrive'' for video game journalism and ''Hard Money'' for business and financial advice.
%%* Spanish comedy/satire website ''El Mundo Today''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheWrongCoast'' presents fake celebrity news through eccentric {{Claymation}} characters.
[[/folder]]
----
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
This is my sandbox. This is a test of my sandbox. This sandbox is to be used for stuff.
In some cases, there might be ''italics'' or '''bold''' things in the sandbox.
There might also be {{pothole}}s in the sandbox, perhaps to [[Film/AttackOfTheClones entities]] who have a particular dislike of sand.
Does it work? We shall see. But it would appear so.
In some cases, there might be ''italics'' or '''bold''' things in the sandbox.
There might also be {{pothole}}s in the sandbox, perhaps to [[Film/AttackOfTheClones entities]] who have a particular dislike of sand.
Does it work? We shall see. But it would appear so.
