#Howl's moving castle AU

[sensitiveheartless]

Here are some messy recent drawings from my sketchbook! Mostly expression and pose practices with some plotting thrown in :D

[theshenanijiang]

I present the character design I came up for for Howl!Xie Lian. This isn't even the final form! Next, I will work on Sophie!Hua Cheng and then I plan on making some art of them both interacting. This is all due to the post @unforth made about a Howl's Moving Castle AU HuaLian.

I had a lot of fun working on this. It has been ages since I have had the motivation to draw.

Some notes. I wanted to draw on some of the elements of Howl's design without just putting Xie Lian in Howl's clothes. So, we have the big coat, which I view as an affectation of Howl's to make himself bigger and more impressive and dapper of course. This coat has golden chrysanthemum embroidery. I usually pick my emblems for a meaning. In this case, the chrysanthemum is meant to represent nobility, new life, and longevity.

I looked at a lot of pictures of both the Fang Xin Guoshi and Crown Prince eras of Xie Lian to kind of figure out what sort of fancy feeling I wanted to go for. I really enjoy the peach to dusky rose ombre of his clothes and the mint accent was meant to keep it fresh. The touches of white are a nod to the main outfit we see him in in TGCF.

The earring is another nod to Howl's design of course.

I will probably reblog this when I finish Spohie!Hua Cheng.

[bookdragonfruit]

First did that one on paper late last August. Thought I'd do it again digitally to see if that would make it better. Obviously it didn't

[shubaka]

Podfic of Shining Dishonesty by @snickerdoodlles

Fandom: Haikyuu!! (Howl's Moving Castle AU - no knowledge of the book or movie required) Gen, M/M, Multi, Other (depends on how you want to view it) Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou & Hinata Shouyou & Miya Atsumu & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu, Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi Tags: AU - Fantasy, AU - Magic, Gen or pre-relationship based on your heart's desires Summary: In the land of Banhon, where the grass grows magically greener and the power of twins is quite well known, Atsumu makes himself a castle that wanders where it pleases and its front door opens to four different places. It’s here where he lives in peace and occasional mischief until a cleaning witch comes around and invites himself through the door. Audio length: 43:52 Link to AO3

ahhh this fic brings me so much joy! voiceteam 2024's crossover challenge was the perfect excuse for me to get off my butt and record this. i'm so thankful for the lovely folks who helped pitch in with the voices and to Horchata for the lovely cover art.

[airgiodslv]

how about something inspired by the wing outfit? for @arewedoneyet

It's nearly sunset when the man in the military uniform comes down from the house.

You think later that he's been watching you for a while. Longer than a day, even. He stops beneath your tree and puts his hands on his hips, looking up at where you perch in the high branches.

"You're one of his," he says. "Sunshine's. I can tell."

"How?" you ask. You're curious about everything. Your voice is a hoarse croak you can't remember hearing before.

His smile is grim. "Because Sunshine likes to play god, but he isn’t one. Everything he creates comes back a little bit wrong."

You bristle and hunch your back, so your feathers puff up to make you look larger.

"Has he named you yet?" he asks. You don't reply, afraid of your own rough voice. He smiles again and says, "Then I'll call you Icarus."

There’s a boy sleeping under a tree near yours. You call down to him a few times, but he doesn’t wake. There are cuts on his hands and face. They’re the only parts of him that are still exposed. Flowers and vines have covered the rest of him.

You hope he’s only asleep.

You’ve been watching the distant house with interest. A truck came to make a delivery. There was a wooden box inside like a coffin.

The man in the uniform comes back after a few days. When he reaches the sleeping boy’s tree, you shout a warning.

He shakes his head and stands under your tree to look up at you again. “I’m not going to hurt him. He’s one of Rain’s, and I don’t have any quarrel with Rain. My fight is with Sunshine.”

“Why?” you rasp.

“I believe in science and progress. Sometimes that means experimentation, but not the way Sunshine does it. Sometimes it means war.”

He looks back at the house, or maybe at the barn, where the men in the truck took the coffin.

“I have to go. I have a shuttle to catch. Up there, to the stars.” He points toward the sky, then offers you a mocking salute. “I’ll see you when you learn to fly, Icarus.”

There’s another man at the house now. He’s warm and brown from the sun. He comes out sometimes to chop wood and ride down the dirt road. Dust rises up in clouds behind his horse, like the plumes of steam you saw on the horizon when the rocket launched.

He plants seeds for crops and new trees. He kneels by the sleeping boy’s tree to plant new flowers around him. The sleeping boy still hasn’t woken. You can barely see him now, hidden behind the blooms.

In the early morning, you’re woken from a doze by an impact that jars you all the way to your bones. The man stands at the trunk of your tree. He yanks his axe out of the wood and hefts it to swing again.

You scream at him, rough and panicked. He startles, gripping the axe in both hands and taking a step back. When he sees you restlessly shifting your weight and rustling the leaves, he relaxes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. My wife asked me to cut down this tree for firewood. She must not have known you were here.”

You’ve seen the curtains move upstairs in the house. You’ve felt eyes watching you, just as you watch the house.

You think she knew you were here.

There’s been a long drought, but clouds finally gather, rolling in from where you saw the rocket launch. The sky opens and rain pours down.

You shake out your feathers and hunch under the canopy to wait out the storm. It rains into the night, drenching you and the trees alike, all the way until dawn.

When the sun rises and the sky clears, the sleeping boy under the tree is gone.

A man with shining hair and bright, dark eyes dances through the moonlight to your tree. His movements are graceful one moment and disjointed the next, skipping and spinning between the trees until he faces you with a wide smile.

“Come down, come down,” he croons. His fingers curl slowly in the air, beckoning. “Have you learned to fly yet, little bird?”

It’s the first time you’ve left the tree. You descend, clumsily at first, gaining confidence by the time your feet touch the ground. You tuck your head to preen.

“Have you met him?” he asks. “Does he know everything you are?”

“He called me Icarus,” you say.

Sunshine laughs and reaches out for you with both hands. He cups your face to gaze at you. His lips are cool when he tastes you. His tongue curls the way his fingers had, teasing.

“We’ll see about that,” he sings. “We’ll see who falls from the sky: his planes and shuttles and war machines, or you. We’ll see who flies.”

The men come again with the truck. They take away the man who plants seeds. He fights them, but not well. He moves like you do, like Sunshine had, tentative and newborn.

There are no more new trees, no more flowers. The house is very quiet.

“Why?” you growl when the man in the uniform finally returns. You have too many questions to fit them into more than that one word.

He gazes up at you for a long time before answering. “Because the experiment was over. Because two of you in one place are dangerous. Because it was time.”

There’s a glass with brown liquid in the man’s hand. He takes a long drink. You don’t think it was his first one.

“Because Sunshine made you for a reason,” he says finally. “And I believe it was to destroy me.”

[xanthippe74]

Skybound (now complete!)

Drarry | Rated Teen and up | 61K words/6 chapters

Summary: No matter how much Harry Potter wanted to believe he’d left danger behind when the war ended, it found him again anyway. All he had to do was step out his own front door on a Tuesday morning. A Drarry re-imagining of Howl’s Moving Castle.

Tags: EWE, post-war, romance, HP canon setting plus Fire Demons, getting together, secret identities, curses, dark magic, house-elves, magical house, potions, banter, humor, light angst, disability, threats of violence, happy ending, offscreen mistreatment of magical beings, Harry as Sophie Hatter, Draco as Howl Pendragon

Read Skybound on AO3

Notes: This love letter to one of my favorite stories was long in the making. While it was easy to envision Harry and Draco as Sophie and Howl, it was something of a challenge to translate the plot into the HP-verse while keeping the romance and humor that make Howl’s Moving Castle so beloved. In the end, I took my favorite parts of Hayao Miyazaki's film and Diana Wynne Jones’ novel, cut them into little triangles, and sewed them back together again. I hope the finished product still has some magic in it.

Many thanks to @babooshkart and @onbeinganangel for their input while I was brainstorming back in 2021, the folks on Tumblr and the Drarry Discord who kept me motivated through the home stretch with their enthusiasm for this project, and (most of all!) @nv-md for being a stellar beta reader and all-around trusty cowgirl when I put out the call.

[nandalikesstuff]

AdoLeo and mending :3

Send me a word and a character/ship for a 3 paragraph story! (always accepting)

Leo clicked his tongue, irritated, but the only person he had to be annoyed at was himself.

He had to remember that, as much as his new companion looked like a human, he wasn't really one. His skin was as fragile as porcelain, and his curious mind as innocent as one who had never been exposed to the true workings of the world.

He had to be mindful of Adonis' body and soul. A crack on his arm and torn clothes for clumsily jumping over a wall to follow Leo were solved with magic and a needle, but other types of damage were nowhere near as easy to mend.

[heystovepipeboys]

I am very curious about Howl

thank you for the ask! Howl is very creatively named, being a Howl's Moving Castle speirton au fic. I haven't done a lot on it as of yet, because I need to rewatch the movie, but I do love the idea and rolling it around in my brain haha

The Wizard Speirs ate hearts. He stole them right out of young men and women's chests and swallowed them whole. All the stories said so. But Carwood wasn't young anymore. And he had to break the curse somehow.  His heart would be too old for the wizard's taste now anyway.  The huge hulking beast of a castle clattered and clanked and creaked and strode over the wastes, and Carwood managed a flying leap almost worthy of his real age and not the ancient body he currently inhabited. The door opened to gulp him into its belly.  “Hello?” he panted, squinting into the dim kitchen. “Anyone home?”  The soft crackle-pop of coals was the only response.  “Hello?” he called again. Still no answer, and with a sigh, Carwood sank shakily down into the wooden chair by the hearth.  “That's a nasty spell you've got on you, mister. Won't be easy to break.” Carwood jumped, whipping his head around to look for the source of the voice. The room – cluttered with trinkets and strewn with debris and so untidy it made Carwood's gnarled old fingers itch for a broom – had been empty. He was sure of it. So where… “Over here,” said the fire. 

ask me about my WIPs here!

[onyxbird]

Read a post with a Terry Pratchett quote talking about why certain tropes exist, starting with the kind 3rd son in a fairy tale triumphing and additional commentary on writing, and suddenly had a (probably cursed) idea:

Howl's Moving Castle AU where the reason Sophie is so convinced she's doomed to a life of mediocrity is that she plugged factual sentences about her eldest-daughter self into that latest-and-greatest magical tech everyone is obsessed with, Ye Olde Fantasy ChatGPT, and its predicted narratives for "her future" were consistantly full of regurgitated tropes of her younger sisters surpassing her, because it was fed tons of fictional narratives with that structure but has comprehension of neither fact vs. fiction nor why the fictional tropes exist/"work" (e.g., that the 3rd kid succeeds not because they're 3rd, but because they're the first one to take the kind approach, which again isn't because they're 3rd but because the story is more compelling if we first see what would happen if they made more selfish choices and 3 is traditional.)

Michael also uses YOF ChatGPT for ideas on tackling spells that Howl left as homework before running off, to varying levels of disaster.

Howl probably invented the first version as an amusing novelty (possibly just for the challenge of seeing if he could transfer machine learning functionality over to a magical framework), but made the mistake of letting some other magic users get ahold of it and lost control of the resulting explosion of using "magic intelligence" for things without understanding its limitations.

[hanakihan]

okay since brainrot is real here's some howl's moving castle au things

jinwoo comes from a completely normal family of middle class, his mother owns a bakery in busiest street. his father isn't absent but he with other men works in steppe. jinchul is an orphan that was smart enough to pass an entrance test so he got his education that allowed him to have a decent paying job as an accountant for gunhee's mechanical factory. jinchul is grateful to gunhee for hiring him back when he was still a student which ensured he won't end up on streets and with a tuion debt on his back. because of that jinchul is dead set to work hard to be able to repay gunhee's kindness even if man himself says that there's no need to overwork himself like that.

it's rare for people to develop magic affinity, and while jinwoo was confirmed to have it, his own mana resources were ridiculously small which closed any way to apply under tutelage of country's leading Wizard. jinchul never had any magic affinity but he's the rare case of being magic sensitive - while unable to control and cast it, he has extremely high sensitivity to it, hence why he's one of few to know that gunhee is a powerful wizard.

country's power is decided by how much ranked wizards it has, jinchul has suspicion that gunhee is one of them even if man supresses his insane mana reserves. aside from country-bound wizards and witches there's also 'rouge' ones that roam around lands and are usually a sign of bad omen - people call them Rulers and Monarchs. they can be hired but they're generally hard to track down and when they cross country's borders they're objects of really strong observation. they're wild force and card and no one is happy when one of them roams in their country and not in wastelands. people theorize that both fractions search for something - or rather someone - for completely different reasons.

jinchul is usually a busy man running errands so he doesnt notice at first when shadows around him started to twirl in unnatural way. he does finally notice something is off when his senses go wild with magic signature around him and he finds himself surrounded by shadows in a twisted alley. surprisingly, fearsome 'necromancer' guides him out and helps him to get on meeting spot in time by hopping on rooftops. contrary to belief, necromancer isn't cold and ruthless but a reasonable and calm man. jinwoo later returned to that alley to erase one of monarch's mana signature that took root here and wondere how a human was able to wander into patrial shadow realm.

later that night when doing accountant work jinchul ended up face to face with unknown man who somehow got into his office unnoticed. man demands to know what connections jinchul has with shadow monarch to bear fresh traces of his mana. jinchul tries to get this man out only to learn that it's one of monarchs - Antares - that tries to hunt down shadow monarch. antares leaves but before that curses jinchul - eating away 2/3 of his destined time and leaving jinchul with maximum of a year to live in old man's body unless he somehow manages to break this curse.

jinchul, realizing that he's been in contact with a monarch, decides to silently leave to wastelands so townsfolk and gunhee won't suffer from it. he leaves only a note saying he has urgent business and will try to return. despite initial panic, jinchul isn't too afraid or stressed about his new existence. after all there's not many people to miss him when he's gone.

when wandering wastelands jinchul encounters a really energetic turnip scarecrow that keeps following him. he isn't annouyed but after encounter with both nercomancer and antares he's vary of magical things. he does however catch that scarecrow is also cursed and when it helps him to find an old looking mansion on a rock hill, he asks if scarecrow is willing to follow. screacrow (cursed jinho) agrees.

turns out it's famous wizard of necromancy's mansion and they're on fact not on hill but on dragon's back. inside jinchul feels similar presence as in that alley back then and notices shadows staring at him. then he meets annoyed ashborn, who was a great help and both strike a deal to break each other's curse.

despite jinwoo having a family he rarely visits them - not when he's hunted by both Monarchs and Rulers. he lives a loner and is quite surprised to see jinchul in his mansion only to realize that man suffered for contacting with him so he allows him to stay. later on jinwoo takes jinchul to see S rank wizards and a witch to see if any of them can lift curse. here jinwoo orders special lantern from jongin to contain ashborn when he needs to be moved around because last time jinchul did it with log to clean place, ashborn slightly burned him. jinwoo was alao surprised to see new addition - a screacrow that prefers to hop around on mansion's rooftops and balconies.

while jinwoo keeps house clean, jinchul still cooks and cleans occasionally just not to feel like a burden. he catches shadows being curious on what he's doing so eventually he bonds with them teaching them things while they show him mansion's secrets. jinchul is surprised to learn that some of jinwoo's servants are able to talk and eventually jinchul finds himself arguing with ashborn and kamish the most.

when returning from one of raids jinwoo finds jinchul asleep while man was clearly doing some paperwork. when he wanted to move him to his sleeping place under stairs, jinwoo noticed that jinchul is youthful again - even more so when he isn't frowning. ashborn watched with great interest while snacking on one of logs jinchul left for him.

upon jinwoo's summon to royal palace to meet with royal wizard - the one under whom all S rank gain titlage - jinchul ends up visiting. to his absolute shock royal wizard - strongest one in country and technically is a king of their country despite there being an actual king - is gunhee himself. jinchul is confused and so is gunhee who never expected to see him missing apprentice like that. gunhee mistakenly assumes it's jinwoo who cursed jinchul (because of his mana signature lingesring) but jinchul, unable to tell about his curse, feels frustrated at this misunderstanding. just when gunhee wanted to attempt to lift the curse (which potentially could harm and even kill other wizard because it's antares) jinwoo appears to snatch jinchul into his shadows.

when later things go to hell - jinwoo becomes acrively pursued by all other monarchs - jinchul learns that jinwoo almost died years ago in wastelands only to be found by ashborn and strike a deal with him. essentially, jinwoo lives only because he's bound to ashborn (who fears his mana will eventually consume poor boy), all mana and shadow summons belong to ashborn as well (and kamish is alive also thanks to him) - at this point jinwoo is a vessel that unleashes ashborn's mana and hence why antares approached jinchul - because it wasn't jinwoo's mana that got attached to him.

jinchul feeds ashborn his white streaked hair that he kept in low ponytail because he didn't bother to cut it after turning into an old man. ashborn eats it because it has good chunk of various mana signatures attached (hair is a good magnet for mana signatures and after meeting so many wizards it all got attached to him same way it was when jinwoo helped him out of alley. strong wizards can cleanse themselves but normal humans don't)

upon ashborn's request jinchul gives jinwoo ashborn's heart - which makes jinwoo a monarch that inherited everything ashborn had. ashborn isn't dead but he also isnt bound and decides to simply stay. jinchul's curse got lifted by ashborn and jinwoo as his succsessor was able to lift a curse from jinho (only a monarch can counter monarch's curse) who turned out to be country's missing prince.

jinwoo still high from ashborn's inheritance touhes jinchul's messy slightly burn white streaked hair and says he's beautiful, to be beloved and protected by so much colorful mana. jinwoo later clears misunderstanding with gunhee who officially grants him a title of a national wizard every other S ranks has.

[local-ground-apple]

I just wanna say I love your howls moving castle Au with Vil so much🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 it made me so happy like dude your writings are so good and awesome and I loved it!!! I find it so entertaining😍😍😍 btw I hope you don’t mind me asking can you make part 3 of it? Or are you planning on making a part 3 of it?

Btw I showed this to my big sister and she love the story and I laughed so hard at her reaction when she found out who was the witch of the west is🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

And also I hope you take care of yourself out there author and I hope you take enough rest and don’t forget to love yourself 🥰🥰🥰🥰😊😊😊

ooooo, thank you so much Anon ! 🥰🥰🥰

I'm super happy you & your sister enjoyed this au!

I was actually debating quite long and i had a hard time picking the witch of the west, but finally i decided to make it low-key memish🤣🤣 (oh and i adore making vil's life harder)

And about part 3, hmmm, well I can certainly consider it ! If you have like specific propositions or scenes you'd like to see next, please let me know !

I actually really enjoy writing this au, it's so much fun, so why not ? tho, no promises

Thank you for reading and your kind words Anon ! Take care of yourself too !

Have a lovely day/evening/night ~🥰🥰🥰

Me picking the witch of the waste be like:

[sensitiveheartless]

Omg you wrote dazai’s moving detective agency?? That’s my favorite!! I didn’t realize it you!! Thank you 🩵

Haha, yes 'twas I! >:D Seriously, thank you, I'm really happy that you like it that much — it's the thing I've worked on for the longest on here, I think? And certainly is the project that has taken the most effort, if only because of how much planning it's required. It is very precious to me, so other people enjoying it too makes me melt into a happy puddle every single time, thank you very much <3

[chronosdawn]

Why not none? I prefer like this but Sophie looks a little alike Aether so—

And your story squishes my stomach of the aaaangsst!!😭💔👍🏻

It's good

I'm really pleased to hear you like it!

Honestly my plan for the other couple of drabbles I have lurking in my head for this AU was to focus on Scaramouche and reader (i.e the bit I'm really invested in) and only vaguely allude to the presence of a Sophie-like figure. The tags were partially me brainstorming what I could do with the AU if I wanted to develop it further and it got to the point where I would have to decide on who would take the role of Sophie (like Schrödinger opening his box). To be honest though I have enough WIPs I should finish that I don't think that will be a problem for a good while.

Hope you have a good day!

[crackship-connoisseur]

fighting the hl allegations with junter

[dilatorywriting]

Hi! the AU of howl will have a continuation? just curious, by the way i love everything you write!

Stay hydrated!

❤️ 💕

Maybe! It was intended to mostly just follow the movie and end on a nice, bittersweet "but maybe there could be more someday."

But I can never say never, because like a month ago I never had any immediate plans to write something for Rook either. And now here we are. In Reaper Hell

[shayflame]

Shiggydabi, Howl’s Moving Castle Au

Just remembered I started this au a few years ago, and never finished because while I adore Howl’s Moving Castle, my Adhd said no to watching it a hundred times to finish the story after getting half of chapter 2 done.

I recently came up with the different version of this story, but before I jump off into creation land, I wanted to share chapter 1 of the original fic.

Chapter 1

There’s a familiar hustle and bustle in town. People go to and fro, trains rumble over their tracks, and blow their coal smoke into the air as the horns scream almost in a passing greeting to the small windows of every house that they whiz by.

At one of these many windows, blocked from view briefly by the train smog, a person worked hunched slightly over a hat, hands carefully sewing on the little bits and bobs that would draw the eye when the hat eventually comes to sit at the front of the shop on display.

Touya doesn’t even glance up from his work as his fellow workers get ready to head out for the evening, as they did every day at closing time, their banter and chatter simple background noise to him.

Then, there was a knock at the door that led into a back part of the shop that was Touya’s main work area. He finally looks up and away from what he’s doing, meeting the eyes of Magne who was standing in the doorway.

“Touya, we've just closed the shop, you’ve done enough work, why don’t you come out with us this time?” She spoke, once more, as she did everyday, extending an invitation for the other to join her and the gaggle of girls out to enjoy the town.

But of course, Touya declines, as he always does, “No, I better finish this. You go and have fun.”

“Alright, suit yourself. Let’s go girls!” Magne gives a wave, turning on her heels as she does so, and leaving her place in the door frame, ushering her little grouping of coworkers towards the door. Only for their attention to be caught by something else, all of them rushing to the window to get a peek.

“Wait for me!”

“Do I look okay?”

Look, it's Shigaraki's castle!”

“Oh, where!?”

“I’ve never seen him so close!”

“Do you think he can see us?”

Touya looked towards the window, spying on the rolling hills in the distance, the tromping shape of Shigaraki’s castle as it disappeared into the fog, like the way shadows flee from daylight when it touches their corners. A brief exchange, one that ended as quickly as it began.

There’s a collective love sick sigh from a few of the girls gathered by the window.

“Oh, he’s gone..”

“No, he’s just hiding in the fog from those planes.”

“Did you hear what happened to that girl, Martha, from South Haνen? Τhey say Shigaraki tore her heart out.”

“Now I’m too scared to go out!”

“Don't worry, he only preys on pretty girls.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

“You guys are so mean!”

Their playful banter continued as they left, leaving Touya in the quiet of the shop as he lowered his head and began to work again.

He only manages to get through a total of five new stitches before he sets the hat back on its stand on the table with a small sigh.

He removes himself from his seat, untying his apron and setting it aside, not even bothering to fold it, instead leaving it crumpled on the table beside a mountain of undecorated hats that covered a decent amount of the table space.

Touya retrieves his coat from the coat rack on his way out, making his way out into the courtyard and to the central part of the shop, where all the actually finished hats were.

Pausing by one of the nearby mirrors, one of those mirrors that let you see yourself from three different angles, Touya slipped on his coat. He looked at himself in the mirrors, for a moment or two fussing with his hair, running his fingers through it. It'd been getting a bit long in recent years, he could tie it up in a messy ponytail now. Magne would tease sometimes that he was matching with his younger brother, who’d grown out his hair as a change of pace.

Touya frowned at his reflection, suddenly finding what he was doing, fussing with his hair, rather silly, locating something he could tie his hair up with before he strided out of the shop, turning back only to lock the door behind him.