The first in a series of six short books by Donut4. This begins the tale of the eponymous Thomas Joshman in his world, which sounds remarkably like a poorly-written summary of Harry Potter with all the names changed. Its main appeal is of the So Bad, It's Good variety—and it certainly has that in spades.
Thomas Joshman is a young, bullied boy with fear issues. But everything begins to change when he receives a letter from a mysterious unknown, who invites him to the National Magical Academy of Milkenshland. He begs his father Reginald to allow him to go, but instead he cruelly throws the letter in the fire and grounds Thomas. Only when Ebony, Thomas' mother, reveals that she is a witch and once went to Milkenshland can Thomas go. Thomas takes a magical plane to the academy, and he embarks on a year of adventure that sees him struggling with the wizards' language and customs, becoming defender of the Fobull team, and even battling demons!
The full story can be found here.
Tropes found in this work:
- Adaptation Distillation: Due to the fact that the book essentially summarizes the ~300 page Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone into about 4 pages. It does, however, do surprisingly well in keeping most of the events of the book, though in compressed form.
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Because of the above Adaptation Distillation, there are several of these. Particularly noteworthy is the point at which Tom wakes up after being in the hospital for a week and is, for no reason, told that he was made Fobull defender, despite the fact that "first years never get to be on the Fobull team," and he has shown no aptitude for the sport whatsoever.
- Author Appeal: The author has a strange affinity for ASCII fractions.Tom felt really offended but he couldn’t go to the headmaster twice in one ½ minutes.
- Dull Surprise: Several, likely due to the compressed nature of the story. At one point, Tim and Tom's friends are dying off mysteriously. After the second one dies, Tom goes to the headmaster and calmly tells him, "Another friend dead sir." Tim, however, manages to outdo him the next day:Tim was worried about failing in Potions Class but Thomas then shouted “TIMOTHY WOOLUSTUC!!! OUR FRIENDS ARE DYING!!!!” Tim stared for a second and continued writing ways to not fail potions.
- Expy: Nearly every single character is directly correlated with one or more from Harry Potter, although Hermione is conspicuously absent.
- Thomas Joshman, the main character, is of course Harry Potter.
- Ebony, his mother, is a combination of Petunia Dursley and Lily Potter. Reginald, his father, is unambiguously Vernon Dursley.
- Pat, Thomas' brother, is Dudley Dursley.
- Percy Bendrist, the headmaster, is Albus Dumbledore.
- Timothy Wollstuc, Tom's best friend, is Ron Weasley
- Imsto-Arpeu +=E) Fcreeb, the Human Studies teacher, is Professor Quirrell.
- Cedric Edgar Quelfree, the Spells (or possibly Potions) teacher, is Professor Snape, with a bit of McGonagall.
- Oswald Umegruff, the jerk from Team 10, is Draco Malfoy.
- How Do I Used Tense?: Endemic in the work.Tim stared at the 5 pence and wondered how weird it is.
- Idiot Ball: Taken firmly in hand by Tim, who learns that the mysterious C.E.Q. is Quelfree, then forgets it by the next day, apparently solely so that the reader can learn his identity without the characters knowing.
- Ludicrous Precision: At one point, Quelfree scolds Frederick for being 2 ¼ seconds late!
- Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: The author's approach to punctuation seems to be of the "throw it in wherever it looks good" variety. From the very first paragraph:The lock opened itself and the door opened, Thomas was super-scared and he flung the blanket on him and kept so still the bed was flat; the shadow came in and knew Thomas was there, so the shadow pulled the quilt over and Thomas opened his eyes, all left there was a letter.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: For the first half of the book, Thomas struggles with learning the wizard language. For some reason, he decides to go to the headmaster to complain. The language is never brought up again.Tom explained about the weird language Wizards use and how it’s annoying towards new people and he doesn’t want to hear it for approximately 12 years.
