Sophie Howl 23, Elder Nurse, Pisces Empathetic, Hot-head, Family Oriented

Being adopted by her cousin, Maria, at a tender age, Sophie found love and acceptance within their modest means. Despite never feeling like an outsider, she carried an unexplained void within her, seeking solace in anger to mask the ache of loneliness. Often, others referred to her heart being fiery like a demon, but always with good intentions.

As time passed, Sophie naturally stepped into the role of the family caretaker. This unexpected responsibility provided a sense of purpose and belonging, easing the loneliness that lingered in her heart. Moreover, caring for her family ignited a newfound passion for Elder care, leading her to pursue a Geriatric care degree at Britechester.

A significant turn of events occurred when Sophie's biological mother inherited a substantial sum of money. Surprisingly, she shared a part of this inheritance with Maria and Sophie, changing their lives significantly. With newfound financial stability, Maria and her partner could now afford proper care, freeing Sophie from the constant burden of caretaking.

As Sophie embarks on her journey, she finally has the opportunity to explore a life beyond caregiving. She finds herself standing at the threshold of young adulthood, excited to embrace social experiences she had once observed vicariously through others. Here, she is looking for opportunities of self-discovery and healing. And, as she spends time with others, she hopes to find the key to caring for herself, allowing the void within her to gradually mend.

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find me in the future.

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?

A heart’s a heavy burden to bear

Returning home

green slime be upon ye

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

New Howl piece! :D Very proud of it ^^ Took me quite a while to draw all those little houses, haha! XD

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.

Summer ready!

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Howl truly is the man of all time. He’s a playboy. He’s a malewife. He fell in love with a ninety year old woman. He’s a rugby player. He smells like hyacinths. He’s not a natural blond. When dying his hair went slightly wrong, he filled his home with slime. He has a PhD. He’s a wizard. He found a way to another universe and he told absolutely nobody about it. He makes video games about the magical universe for his nephews. He can’t play the guitar. He always takes a guitar with him when he’s trying to seduce a woman. He’s a self-proclaimed coward. He got drunk to trick himself into doing something dangerous. He overcharges for his services to rich people. He undercharges for his services to poor people. A woman invaded his home and declared herself his cleaning lady and he just let her stay. He loves spiders. He lies about his surname to everyone, including royalty. The true spelling of his first name is Howell, but we don’t find out until halfway through the book because the POV character thinks it’s spelled Howl. He’s even Welsh.

Fun fact, in the book, it's explicitly stated that Sophie is a wizard like Howl and has a magical gift for speaking things into existence. Wish they added that into the film bc it explains SO MUCH and adds to the theme that her thoughts were shaping her reality.

There's one scene where she's fixing Howl's jacket and says it looks like it's built to attract ladies. And then SUDDENLY women are swooning over him.

Sophie from ‘Howl’s moving castle’

What is Howl listening to? 👀👀✨

"I'm sorry. Did I come too late?"

Time for my all time favourite comfort movie, Howl's Moving Castle 🥰