what if wizarding america isn’t silly

downtroddendeity:

jumpingjacktrash:

when i heard there’s only one wizarding school in america, i laughed incredulously, and i know i’m not the only one. one school for the whole huge country? obviously brits don’t have any idea how big america is! cue derisive anecdotes about visitors who thought they could visit hollywood as a day trip from new york.

but recently something’s occurred to me: what if ilvermorny IS the only ‘wizarding school’ in america, with ‘wizarding school’ being defined as a wizard-only establishment where they teach nothing but magic?

aside from how unprepared that leaves kids for the rest of life, there just isn’t the population density to support wizard-exclusive pocket-universe enclaves anywhere but the east coast and possibly los angeles. even chicago is more spread out than that, and when it comes to mid-size cities like minneapolis and st. louis, forgeddaboudit. not even wizards would choose to live crammed cheek by jowl on quaintly crooked pedestrian-only streets when they could have a three-bedroom prairie-style on a wooded half-acre in edina.

so i’m thinking, yeah, ok, most american magicals don’t send their kids to wizard school. kids go to regular school and have wizarding clubs and retreats and summer camps instead. gives new meaning to “one time at band camp.”

the pureblood prejudice never developed in america? well, of course not, no one but the hamptons set goes even a single day without interacting with muggles. most of your friends are going to be muggles. there aren’t enough magical jobs for everyone, so most people’s coworkers will be muggles. except we wouldn’t call them muggles, of course, and certainly not ‘no-maj’ – that sounds like something that was said for a while by one particular new york jet set clique in the 1920′s and got written down in an english etiquette book as ‘what americans say’. we’d probably call them ‘mundanes’ or ‘normals’ if we called them anything at all.

the stuff about wand permits and other odd regulations makes sense for a small bureaucracy that doesn’t really understand why it can’t control things the way european magical governments do. it’s kind of a cargo cult legislation. probably most americans don’t even use a wand most of the time. european wand-focused magic might be the Done Thing among the WASP contingent, but everyone else undoubtedly knows at least something about navajo healing ritual, haitian voodoo, lakota dance magic, chinese feng-shui warding techniques, etcetera. taking away a person’s wand doesn’t take away their magic. you can’t say ‘corn pollen permit’ with a straight face and they sell chalk at the corner store.

i expect american wizards look at the hogwarts set as kind of a weird sect with weird restrictions and weird costumes. like the amish, but instead of furniture and quilts, they export clueless young men.

I feel like there’d be a lot of people who took the Old Country European traditions and bent them, too, and while the original techniques are still recognizable, after years and years of separation from the traditionalist wizard culture that spawned them, the end results look pretty different.

A wandmaker’s apprentice from Italy moved to Point Pleasant in 1847 knowing that you make a wand by taking a part of a magical animal and encasing it in specially-grown wood to create a focus for spells, but discovered that dragon heartstrings and phoenix tail feathers were hard to come by in West Virginia. 170 years later the local wizarding community has a thriving industry selling custom-made magic wands, bracelets, pendants, rings, staffs, walking sticks, umbrellas, brooches, etc. on Wizard Etsy containing filaments from Mothman’s antennae.

(via nudityandnerdery)

househunting:

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$175,000/3 br/2475 sq ft

Eatonton, GA

built in 1952

“This charming home is just that. A home. She has held only 3 families dear to her heart. Sheltered them as they flourished in life, and smiled as they moved on. Within her brick exterior lies a unique time capsule. Original hardwood floors that have felt the pitter patters of all the little toes she watched grow. A huge farm sink that has bathed countless dirty hands. Hidden within her are beautiful bathrooms, designed to function and built to last through all of the family functions she?s held the last 60+ years. At her core, is a play room that has absolutely. without a doubt, held the most amazing moments. First steps, big booboos, belly laughs, and so much more. Below is where a husband would sneak away to build a birdhouse for their anniversary. Where children have colored her foundation poles with chalk on rainy days. She is adorned with the softest grass. She is planted perfectly in a yard big enough to host an entire kickball game. And when the sun rises and falls, she glows. She is edged with a creek, that attracts just enough fireflies in the summer to make it look like the stars have fallen. She has stood tall through the years. Her bones are sturdy and her heart is good. She will treat you right. This is not just another house you?ve seen in zillow. This is a home. Is it a fit for you?“

(via househunting)

Anonymous asked:

STOP WITH THE MEMES! LEON AND CLAIRE WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER! ADA IS A MANIPULATIVE HARLOT WHO ONLY CARES ABOUT HER NEXT PAYCHECK!!!

dangerousbride Answer:

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She Who Painted The Medium

gokuma:

supersoftly:

titaniumlegman:

bufffamouspeeps:

This is Julie Bell

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  • She is the wife and collaborator of Boris Vallejo, the artist who produced much of the 90s-era fantasy art, especially Conan the Barbarian and Barbarella also much of the 90s Marvel character art for collector cards, which for our generation is quite significant. If you owned a Marvel superhero card collection with super-realistic features, chances are either Vallejo or Bell painted it.
  • Bell’s own work produced a broad range of works crossing genres from fantasy art, used futures, and the creatures in the natural world.
  • She also did work for MTV, Coca-Cola and Nike, and helped in painting the film trailers for National Lampoon’s Vacation, and the Aqua Team Hunger Force Movie.
  • Throughout the 90s, over 100 fantasy book cover illustrations for science fiction and fantasy magazines were painted by her, 90 of which were done in the 20 years to 2009. If you played a fantasy video game for the SNES, or Sega Game Gear, she most likely painted the game cover.
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As you may have noticed, some of the artworks feature not must of the powerful men you’d traditionally in fantasy art, but powerful women as well. Vallejo and Bell liked to depict women who displayed strength, power and athleticism - and modelled the female figures on some of her friends.

In fact, Bell, who was previously a competitive bodybuilder - was herself the model for her own art as well as that of her husband’s. She was her own muse and her own canvas, in paint and in the gym.

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Bell was and still is, as passionate about fitness as well as her art. It is these twin passions that fuelled the hyper-realistic figures with such defined anatomies. Her talent made her a notable figure in the fantasy art and comic book scene.

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She won multiple awards for her art including several first place awards for the Art Renewal Center, and honorable mentions, multiple Chesley Awards - the award given to recognise science fiction and fantasy artistic works, and the Socity of Animal Artists Southwest Editors Choice Award.

She currently resides in Beaumont, Texas, continuously working on her paintings, although her work has recently had more of a focus on the natural world.

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Her sons - Anthony and David Palumbo is also a fine artist in his own regard, David in particular,  produced work for Magic: The Gathering as well as Heavy Metal Magaine, gaining clients from Tor.com to Lucasfilm, by way of Marvel.

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In short, Julie Bell has an enduring influence on popular culture, one that covers an entire generation from everything ranging from board games to film.

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@supersoftly @thistledbones thought you guys would find this interesting.

Julie Bell is an absolute doll and role model. If I can be even an inkling of her power and influence, I’ll die happy :D

@iamnamedsilence look at those wolves! (also, feel free to look at everything else ;)

(via nudityandnerdery)

cadosanctus:

outtagum:

A quarter of a century after leaving Neverland and the stars of Hook have recreated their look to mark the film’s 25th anniversary

THIS IS THE CUTEST FUCKING THING I HAVE EVER SEEN I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK CAUSE CUTENESS

(via nudityandnerdery)

emmersdrawberry:

sercauthrienismywife:

Stop saying the dwarves of Khazad Dum ‘dug too greedily and too deep’ DWARVES DIG. IT’S WHAT THEY DO. I did’t see any of you popping over to let Durin VI know that he’s on top of a Balrog, how was anyone supposed to know! Saying it was ‘too deep’ or ‘too greedy’ is just Sindar propaganda, as if yall weren’t super content to sit pretty and huff weed in Menegroth while everyone else did the heavy lifting. Maybe if you’d done ANYTHING during the first age there wouldn’t BE a balrog under there in the fIRST PLACE!!! EVER THINK OF THAT? CELEBORN?

Gandalf ghost wrote this

(via nudityandnerdery)

hollyblueagate:

hollyblueagate:

fosters home for imaginary friends was an awful dystopia and no one talks about it at all

just a few things established in the fosters universe

  • imaginary friends are sentient people and everyone can see them
  • 8 years old is considered too old to have an imaginary friend
  • a large amount of imaginary friends get thrown out on the street legally. At several points they talk about how they had nowhere to go and just wandered around. In Good Wilt Hunting you see a neighborhood full of imaginary friends that live on the street
  • this is such an issue there’s shelter(s). there’s absolutely political debates about this.
  • imaginary friends have rights, but not the same rights as humans (they can hold jobs and need passports and such but they can be confiscated/held as property and apparently killed without any legal issues) 
  • babies imagine abstract, swarming friends, kids imagine normal friends, anyone older tends towards violent monsters that have to be locked up to keep them from attacking people
  • at one point, someone imagines a friend and eats it because they’re hungry

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  • this is all just treated as facts of life

(via zohbugg)


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