what if wizarding america isn’t silly

almost-always-eventually-right:

violyntfemme:

plotqueen:

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

jumpingjacktrash:

citysaurus:

jumpingjacktrash:

citysaurus:

jumpingjacktrash:

citysaurus:

jumpingjacktrash:

nerdyzebradog:

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.

if I lick your brain will I gain your creativity?

i don’t know but it’s worth a try

also no one else will be able to eat it because it’s got your germs on it, which will be handy if zombies

this has always pretty much been my whole exact understanding of the hp universe

i also figured a lot of american magic is in english instead of the pseudo greek/latin British spells since, unlike British schools, most Americans never study those, so our spells are like ‘Fire’, ‘Unlock", “Magic Missile’

also american wands have gun grips or are baseball bats

when i was a kid i made a wand out of a piece of copper pipe with brass end caps, and carried it around with me for most of a year; i know a lot of kids who had walking sticks from summer camp or hiking, and pretended they were magic. hell, i bet a lot of wizard kids learn to cast with a #2 pencil, just from idly messing around.

also, spells based on superhero powers: definitely a thing.

imagine some baddie trying to AK someone and getting hit by SHAZAM in return.

american wizards learn how to do spider-man webbing out of wands the way kids learn to do that one S symbol

source: remember those dumb/racist comics ron had in his room? that’s all they got. britwizards don’t know a single spider-man

spells based on d&d too, i bet. and not nearly as much distinction between ‘dark arts’ and the rest, largely because a lot of the nonwhite arts got classified as Ebil Scary Bad by anglos, and the rest of america wasn’t having it. in louisiana, knowing the voodoo lady can raise the dead just speaks to the high quality of her marching powder.

florida wizards can use pool noodles as wands

not a single british wizard has ever returned from florida

dude florida is just one big messy cryptid zone, the ‘florida man’ phenomenon is real and ‘hold my beer’ is a very powerful spell

edit: ok, wizarding america IS silly, just not the way rowling thought

THIS ENTIRE THREAD IS GOLD

“bless your heart” from a southern lady is worse than an ak.

I adore every single one of you.

btw, bigfoot is what happened when somebody was too lazy to become an animagus so they tried to use polyjuice potion to transform into a bear 

If nothing else [Johnny Depp’s casting as Grindelwald will] willhelp me sympathise with Dumbledore when he shows up in later films.

I too know the experience of having a wild crush on Depp as a teenager only to later feel horribly guilty about it once it came out what an arse he was.

Seen on an anon comm (via baratheon)

bixgirl1:

manycoloureddays:

harry gets lots of offers from historians, journalists – just about anyone willing to pick up a quill tbh – but the only authorised biography that gets published in his lifetime is co-written by luna lovegood and lee jordan. part graphic novel (images courtesy of dean thomas), part choose your own adventure, and roughly 80% quibbler-esque misinformation, it is common knowledge that if you want an autograph, the only paper he’ll sign is that book.

Headcanon 100% accepted.

violetscythe:

fuocogo:

sashaforthewin:

brosequartz:

queerandgrumpy:

headcanon that since the slytherin common room is under the lake there’s a room where the walls and ceiling are glass and you can just see into the lake like an aquarium

headcanon that when this was first done the mermaids got really aggressive and hateful about it and started ramming the glass but since it was magic this just caused them injuries

until a deaf/hoh slytherin started to teach them sign language and it took a long time bit by the time they left hogwarts they and the rest of the house were communicating with the mermaids and on good terms

eventually it becomes a part of slytherin house culture you’re a slytherin you know sign language because if you don’t chat with the mermaids they get grumpy

this helps a lot of deaf/hoh students

this also gives slytherin the best grades of any house on all aquatic magical studies

the mermaids give terrible dating advice do not trust them

The most common mermaid dating advice, of course, being “Drown him”

(DROWN HIM <3)

((HE’S SURVIVED THAT ALREADY))

Accepted

anais-ninja-blog:

harrypotterfandomunite:

xtaticpearl:

berkcastteam:

ohmytheon:

owleensnest:

cameoamalthea:

bellesbloggg:

alrightanakin:

thebookishgurl:

marauders4evr:

theiguanaamarillaart:

marauders4evr:

therewerenorelevanturlsavailable:

wickedbitchofthewestcoast:

mira-of-sassgard:

iamthepureblindraven:

malfoycat:

stephenhawqueen:

a harry potter au where potions is taught by gordon ramsay

neville: *messes up his potion*

gordon ramsay: *holds neville between two slices of bread* what are you

neville: an idiot sandwich

no no no!

Imagine that this is Gordon Ramsay a la Masterchef Junior

Neville: *messes up the potion, realizes it, starts crying quietly*

GR: What’s going on?

Neville: *explains how he messed up*

GR: Oh gosh okay…we can fix this, don’t cry, see, it’s fine now? Just be more careful when you’re adding the Newt’s eyes, all right? Drop them in gently. There we go. No more tears.

Neville: *giggles wetly, wiping eyes*

Yes, he only screams when he’s dealing with people that claim to know what they’re doing and clearly dont, when he’s teaching he’s very kind and patient because they’re still learning.

He’d probably do the bread thing to Malfoy.

nononononono. I get that Malfoy is a bit of a twat, but he’s still a kid. It’d be the teachers fucking up that he’d have trouble with.

Ramsay: All you had to do was treat it with a fucking Beozar! 

Slughorn: It was a stressfu-

Ramsay: How long have you been teaching potions?!

or

Ramsay: So you’re going to raise this boy SPECIFICALLY so he can die as part of your twisted little scheme? 

Dumbledore: It’s for the greater good, professor. 

Ramsay: The greater fucking good?! *holds two slices of bread either side of dumbledoor’s face* What are you? 

Dumbledore: Am I, per chance, an idiot sandwich? 

Ramsay: Yes, you fucking are. 

Okay, now I can reblog it!

image

@marauders4evr

Fantastic!

@alrightanakin

I’m in love

I MUST HAVE REBLOGGED A THOUSAND TIMESSSS

My favorite Gordon Ramsey moment is from the latest season of Master Chef Jr.

Gordon had run in to help a group of struggling kids with a team challenge and one of the older kids, a 12 year old boy, wasn’t passing attention while taking a pan out of the oven and not only spilled all the food but scalded Gordon.

It’s clear Gordon’s leg is in pain. He’s been badly burned without warning. But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t yell, not even in pain, and he doesn’t go off on the child who is now frozen in fear. He calmly tells the child to set the pan down and to close the oven, safety first. Then tells him to go restart the food he was making, calm instructions.

My husband and I grew up in abusive homes where any mistake meant parents getting angry (my husband is terrified of spills or broken glasses because that meant beatings growing up, for me, anything going wrong, that could upset my mother, even if it wasn’t my fault meant screaming and emotional abuse).

I didn’t know someone could be so calm. That someone could not get angry, and put aside what they’re feeling (in this case a lot of physical pain) and not take it out on those around them, even when someone around them had messed up, because that person is a child.

Gordon Ramsey is a survivor of child abuse himself and as an adult, the most non-abusive person ever when it comes to kids.

im going to cry can gordon ramsey be my parent this sound so beautiful

Please take a moment to picture Gordon Ramsay taking over Potions when Snape becomes the DADA professor (instead of Slughorn) and not only being horrified when he realizes how terrified the students are that he’ll verbally abuse them when they mess up in Potions class but when he overhears how Snape treats students. Like can you IMAGINE the level of RAGE and CONTEMPT that Ramsay would harbor towards Snape? The asshat wouldn’t have made it to the end of HBP. Ramsay would’ve hexed his ass to kingdom come.

Rebloging ALL of this because Chef Ramsay is THE MAN!

-HC

Chef Ramsay would have become the kids’ favourite teacher and you can’t take that away from me.

Imagine him dealing with Umbridge

yeah, but like now i need red nose day or comic relief to do a sketch where gordon ramsay fucking reads the entire hogwarts staff.