evil-haiku-robot:

poplitealqueen:

vorpalgirl:

poplitealqueen:

wizardlogic:

Filch has a doctorate in art conservation and has definitely read Hogwarts A History

Actaully speaking of PoA, can we fuckin talk about Filch and his art credentials?

The portrait of the fat lady gets slashed and Dumbledore hands her off to Filch to get restored?

AND FILCH DOES IT, AND DOES IT WELL?

The next time we see her there is NO mention of anything like, oh she’s back but you can kinda see where she was cut… NO. She comes back in PEAK CONDITION.

Restored by Filch, who *has no magic.*

He restored this however many hundreds of year old painting *by hand.*

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?

This 100% changes the character of Filch. Like I’ve only ever seen him portrayed as this kind of head janitor kind of character, movies style, but like. Why? Why would Hogwarts need that if it’s full of house elves? According to Harry Oblivious Potter, probably cause Dumbledore felt bad and gave him a shitty job but one he could at least do and still be in the wizarding world.

WRONG. It’s cause that’s not his actual job.

Listen.

Dung bomb goes off in a classroom? Long night for the house elves.

Dung bomb goes off in a 300 year old suit of armor? Long six to eight weeks for Argus Filch.

Fanged frisbee tears up an irreplaceable tapestry?

Filch.

Peeves draws dicks on a portrait of the founders?

Filch.

All these damn kids in and out of here every day acting like dumbasses and blowing stuff up when it’s already bad enough they keep tracking dirt and *breathing* all over everything?

Filch.

Now how about, how does Filch know all the secret passages? A combination of things. Probably paintings told him about some. You spend weeks restoring a portrait of someone who helped build the place which lives and moves and speaks in their voice and you’re bound to at least talk a bit, if not learn a few things. But many he probably found on his own, either by wit or by study- he’s gotta be entrenched in tr history of this place. If Binns hadn’t come back as a ghost Filch could probably teach history of magic in his place.

He keeps the place in order such that generations next will still have it, and said generations next show him no god damn respect for that. He’s bitter for a lot of excellent reasons.

This post just made my morning.

@wizardlogic @poplitealqueen curse and bless you for this post because I – I never noticed that detail. I NEVER NOTICED THAT DETAIL BUT NOW THAT YOU POINTED IT OUT

“

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?

“

YES, OP. YES I DO, BECAUSE MY MOM LITERALLY RESTORES PAINTINGS FOR A LIVING! Oil paintings are one of her specialties and this kind of repair is absolutely possible but it takes YEARS of skill and a SUPER steady hand and a GOOD EYE to do holy shit my ENTIRE VIEW OF FILCH IS UPTURNED TOPSY TURVY DERVY UPSIDEFUCKINGDOWN NOW

From what I recall:

– Slashed, you say? okay, so, if it was a “clean” cut with nothing actually missing, he would likely carefully line it back up but you have to PATCH THE BACK – which takes care and skill and KNOWLEDGE of how to do it right. Also, longer slashes (as might happen with a knife, which I think was the case here) are obviously trickier to line up, requiring more dexterity

– You patch it (if you’re doing it properly) from behind, with another piece of canvas, because canvas is good and sturdy there’s a reason we paint on it but doesn’t that mean he has scraps of the stuff just?? lying around?? or at least somebody got him some asap

– I don’t know what adhesive is used for this  if it’s a SMALL slash, but depending on the size, it might be easier to “line the canvas” which means LITERALLY adhering it the original, delicate canvas to a new one with HOT MELTED WAX, which has to be melted ~just so~ so that you’re not damaging the paint (I think it might be a special wax, too, idk, I might be seeing mom tomorrow and ask?? I’ll ask about whether this is also used for the smaller patches if I can remember)

– okay but here’s the tricky part. You’ve gotten it lined up. You’ve patched it. But in order to really and truly HIDE the former tear……..you need to likely do a tiny bit of INPAINTING

– fun fact: this is what it sounds like. You’re painting in the missing parts or messed up parts.

-This means Filch has to have a GOOD eye for color and pattern, and STEADY hand with a brush, because the tear is NOT noticeable.

– he likely also has a good knowledge of the ingredients of oil paint and how to mix/thin/thicken them properly!! FILCH HAS ART TRAINING. LITERALLY. HE’S BEEN TRAINED IN THIS. HE HAS TO BE.

– SIDEBAR: We know (thanks to Colin Creevey’s babbling in Book 2) that Wizarding Photographs move because during the development process, you use some sort of potion to magic it. I would lay good money that there’s something similar that gets added to oil paints, possibly enchanted linseed oil or something, something that would be in the BASE of the paint, since it’s found in all the colors of the magical paintings. He knows how to mix this in, he’s gotta, otherwise this poor woman would have like, a glitch in her painting, right? That’s my headcanon there.

– OH OH I FORGOT!! you never ever EVER want to “match the dirt” on an antique painting you want to match the actual original colors as best you can, so HE HAS TO STRIP THE ORIGINAL VARNISH AND ANY DIRT ON OR UNDER IT BEFORE HE INPAINTS

– THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG, DELICATE PROCESS USING OFTEN-NASTY CHEMICAL SOLVENTS. You do it goddamn inch by inch!! with like, Q-tops and cotton balls!! Alternatively, you can use your own spit with Q-tips and Cotton Balls, because spit is the most gentle solvent of all (there’s your Gross Handy Art Restoration Fact of the Day), but either way, jesus, this is a LONG process, it’s EXTREMELY tedious and a lot of really REALLY careful work. Like. My mom, and any decent restorer, will tend to charge HUNDREDS for most restorations, or thousands of dollars for particularly large ones. She charges by one of several Difficulty levels, plus by the square inch because, yeah….that’s a lot of labor. how fucking. big is this painting again??? 

– then there’s the revarnishing step, because you gotta PROTECT the future painting.  or rather, there’s TWO varnishing steps, IIRC because you don’t really want your retouch work to directly lay on the original if you can help it,  apaprently? you want it to be removable if you fuck it up or need to redo the repair at any point, apparently?? or something like that. My mom, at least, always does a layer of varnish (tedious in its own right, brushed on carefully to avoid bubbles or streaks) lets it dry for I want to say a day or two it could be longer (I’ll try to remember to ask) and THEN only THEN does she do the inpainting. which you ALSO varnish over. and let dry.

so uh, this might be another case of Jo REALLY getting her timelines awful messy because there’s no fucking way that think took under a few days to fix?? I think we’re looking at over a week MINIMUM, if Filch was really going at it, and that is my not-quite-professional opinion, it might actually be longer

I’m not saying the only way we can reconcile this is by Filch using a time turner to take the painting back in time and start work on it before the fucking school year even starts, but I AM saying that’s one of the only plausible ways I can see that painting getting repaired WITHOUT MAGIC that quickly

but my god, that man must have a really good artistic eye. and like.

it just occurred to me. he’s a squib. he couldn’t get a proper magical education at someplace like Hogwarts, since he cant’ do Charms or Transfigurations or the like, so like?? did he?? go to like a muggle college or something?? did he go to literal art school?? how did that mesh with the magical components of the paintings and other art he might be working on?? 

DO WIZARDS HAVE AN ART SCHOOL??? 

ARE ALL WIZARD ARTISTS SELF-TAUGHT??

WAS LEONARDO A WIZARD?? WAS HE SQUIB???  IS THAT WHY HE INVENTED FLYING MACHINE CONCEPTS, BECAUSE HE COULDN”T USE A BROOM?????????

I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE BEEN OBSESSING OVER HOW THERE CANNOT POSSIBLY BE ONLY ONE AMERICAN WIZARDING SCHOOL WHEN I COULD HAVE QUESTIONED HOW THEY FUCK THEY HAVE MAGNIFICENT ENCHANTED ART AND TAPESTRIES WITHOUT HAVING WIZARD ART SCHOOLS

and

……….fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck now i want to fic this??? a little??

@vorpalgirl You made an already brilliant post even more brilliant.

@̼̙̌͡V̛O͏ͫ́R̮͟P̏A̺̼ͮL̛͉G̷̗͐͐͞I͚R̮L̴ͤ͟͡ ̳̋͋Ι͡Y̢҉̠ͫ́O͒́U҉̓ ͜Mͣ̓͝A̵̖̺̭͊D̠̝̙ͥE̻͒ ̨̧̰͔̈

A̵N̷̶̗ ̷̝͊͢͞A̵̹̔͡L͇͓͗ͥͥR̴̘̣͠E҉̜̠͕̀A͉D̋̿Y̞̅̇ ̤̏̋B͏̴̑͗R̫̮I̵͕̽L̛̲̒̕L̨͍̀I̍Ả̴͑͗̐N̙͌̎̀͠T̯͍͡ ̟̔͏P̷͈̄O̰͚҉҉ṠT̴̺ ̀͏̛̩͢

E̶̲̽̓͘V̳҉͉ͪ̃E̠͝͝ΙŃ̽ ̨̙̌͜͜M̢̀̇O̺͠R͕̄̂̌͒Ȇ҉͍ ͉̝͖B̺̰̣R̘͕̻̃I͔L̩̞̰̓̕Lͥ́I̶ͮ́͞A̵Ι̖̕N̴̸ͤT̕ ̕

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