#sophielis

[ajaxgb]

Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.

Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.

Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.

In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.

In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)

In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.

The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.

In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.

[bats-baby]

kinda glad part 2 came out during June so I can wish these two a happy pride month 😚🫶🏼🏳️‍🌈

[dinosaur-mayonnaise]

obsessed with characters who were written for one another. like, what do you mean the reason for my existence is to be by your side? what do you mean our divine purpose is to belong to one another, for better or worse?

[marislittlethings]

deeply obsessed with the bridgerton siblings finding the loneliest, most underappreciated people and then forcibly adopting them into their family by way of scandalous marriages

[treibholz-des-universums]

NIKO SASAKI AND EDWIN PAYNE Dead Boy Detectives (2024-)

[glitterfairy-21225]

Benedict next season: Mother, what you and Father, and Anthony, and Daphne... and Colin... and Francesca... all have is rare.

[squipedmew]

I went to go see the fnaf movie and someone had set up a picture of markiplier in the chair next to me for the entire movie

[oexas]

A lil practice in perspective with this piece mostly, so here's Howl and Sophie, who I designed based 50/50 on their book and movie counterparts! I actually would love to revisit this piece and paring in the future, since the book is one of my all time favs

[nataliesplatalie]

Sophie Pearson, I remember you in the ocean, and I'll remember you as red, both c. 2023 and oil pastel on wood

[nerdygaymormon]

[spicymancer]

Sleeby Sheepy

[gothicgirlh-9]

🕸🕸🕸Sophie 💕🌈💋🕸🕸🕸

[criiitter]

find me in the future.

[rosiethorns88]

Heyy everyone! Dropping the latest Sketch-a-Wish, one that has been repeatedly requested by my lovely patreon members-- with a caveat! There were frequent requests for two scenes: one where Sophie tells Howl to find her in the future, and the 'There you are' scene in the beginning. I decided to bridge the gap between these two scenes and show something we've never seen before - the secret moment when Howl tracks Sophie down using matching ring he gave to Sophie. If you'll notice in the movie, it's sparkling just as he puts his hand on her shoulder. I thought it would be a fun 'what if' fanart for this off-screen theory. :)

[sadfishkid]

green slime be upon ye

[tossawary]

Rewatched the Howl's Moving Castle movie (fantastic animated movie, definitely inspired by more than an adaptation of the book) while doing something else and I was struck this time by the fact that the Prince (Turniphead the Scarecrow) says that he intends to go tell his king to call off the war, but THEN he intends on COMING BACK to Ingary to shoot his shot with Sophie again because (as he says to the flirtatious Witch of the Wastes) "hearts change".

And maybe he will come back to make Sophie an offer of marriage and then leave again when he's turned down, but I imagined for a moment that the Prince (who is possibly the movie's version of Prince Justin, so let's call him Justin) might just... move back into Howl's house without asking and stay there. There are several cases of precedent for this. Also, as Turniphead, he's shown several times helping Sophie with laundry, or playing with Markl, or helping the Witch of the Wastes move around, and Sophie deserves that kind of help around the house! Howl isn't going to reliably do chores.

And you know what? I think Howl would be into that shit. There's something very Wynne-Jonesian about it all still. It's tempting to write a post-canon fic about this situation from the movie with an extra dash of flavoring from the books. Like:

This is the infamous wizard Howl Pendragon/Jenkins, a vain draft-dodging flirt who likes to build moving castles to evade taxes too. The beautifully angry young woman with the silver hair over there is his wife, Sophie Hatter, who may or may not be an extremely powerful witch, but right now she's dusting and do not get in her way. This is Calcifer, the fire demon who used to have Howl's heart and is arguably his other life partner and also might be in love with Sophie, and this is arguably kind of actually his house. The old lady smoking a cigar over there is Howl's ex-girlfriend and former nemesis, the Witch of the Wastes, who now lives in their house. This is Markl, Howl's apprentice, kind of his kid, and there is no explanation of where he comes from or what happened to his parents. The dog used to be(?) the Royal Wizard's spy (Howl used to be her apprentice and potential successor) but now he also just lives here. And that's Prince Justin of Strangia, Sophie's house-boyfriend. Don't listen to the propaganda, he wasn't kidnapped by a heart-eating wizard; he used to be a cursed scarecrow and now he wants to be here to help Sophie do laundry. He's trying to homewreck and Howl thinks it's both funny and hot.