When I come across a summary that reads along the lines of "The war ended, but all of Harry's friends were dead," and I think to myself, 'now that could be an interesting story', but the next line is "...so Dumbledore's portrait/Fawkes/Dobby/Filch sends him back to the past..."

Why can't Harry just deal with the devastating results of a shitty war? would be much more interesting than another time-travel fix fic.

 

I come across this a lot and it kind of pisses me off. When a kid is talking about their father they refer to them as 'da' I used to think it was a typo but I think people are actually using this as a shortened form of dad. Google search has come up with nothing.

 

I actually know someone who used 'da' as their word for father. They did it less as they got older. Granted that might be because his dad never really comes up in conversation anymore.

 

How about when they were 11 say 12 years old?

 

Usually I see it in characters who are supposed to be country folk, peasants etc, though ma for mother is much more common as opposed to da.

 

I recognize 'ma'. Having five uncles that greet my grandmother that way and they sound like they are gargling gasoline at the same time. It's my bad then then about 'da' though.

 

I've never heard either of this used. Is it European?

 

According to OED it looks like the the word ma is of North American decent. 16th century to be exact.

 

Secret 5th house. Just no.

 

I've only seen this once. It was uh, pretty pointless and dumb. It got even worse when a new table appeared out of no where pushing the others aside to make room, which Harry sat down alone at. Then he gets escorted to a hidden common room that no one knew about by elves. What the fuck.

 

It's certainly not unheard of in the UK, but it's regarded as an Irishism.

In fact I just went and checked because I thought Seamus used the term 'da' in the first movie. He doesn't, by the way, but I certainly wouldn't have batted an eyelid if he had. It's curious you couldn't find any references to it. 'Da' for 'Dad' is used in Ulysses, for example.

 

When a main character- usually Harry- acts like a complete dick to everyone and not only gets away with it, but is actually praised by the author/other characters. This is especially bad when the person he's getting angry at has done NOTHING wrong. A good example is Professor McGonagall in fifth year, not doing anything to stop Umbridge. Even if she could have done anything to get rid of her, (which she couldn't) the Ministry would just send a another lackey, probably instructed be even worse than Umbridge herself.

There's being rightfully angry at something, and then there's being a douchebag.

 

Today I can think of two pet peeves. When someone uses the phrase For The Greater Good in relation to Dumbledore before Rita published her book, Harry most of the time. Whenever I see that, I half expect the characters around to dress him down for comparing him to Grindewald and disregard anything that Harry has to say from that point onwards since he clearly doesn't know what he is talking about.

The second is when a summary has three or more questions that start with "What if". One I might accept for the sake of stablishing the premise. Two is pushing it. Three and I scroll down in disgust without even finishing the summary.

 

The Greater Good: the worst phrase that ever exists, and proof that Dumbledore is a bad guy.

The Needs of the Many outweigh the Needs of the Few: one of the more iconic and memorable quotes in Sci-Fi history.

 

Right now my biggest pet peeve is any variation on 'I swear on my life and magic'.

One of the few things that's always an instant quit for me.

 

Don't forget the frivolous "Unbreakable Vow".

 

So mote it be.

 

Also, the "oath" is never used once — it usually starts oath-swearing on everything, because reasons.

"Susan Anabelle Bones, I, Harry James Potter, swear you have a great pair of knockers. So mote it be!"

 

Unless the the character in question is exceptionally socially retarded, having an adult character blush like a 12 year old talking to their first and stuttering when speaking to someone they like/find attractive/etc is straight up annoying.

 

Or they're talking to a really hot Veela.