There is Nowhere to go!

This is my side blog. I love Diana Wynne Jones and Joanna Newsom and some other random pieces of media. I mostly shitpost but sometimes I do digital collage fan art. Feel free to drop any DWJ fan art requests in my askbox. They/them. Finnish.

[secondarysecrets]

Amazing how I can literally explain in my bio that I do digital collages among other things and some people still don't get it. Digital. Collages. Photomontages. That means editing images together to create a new image.

Like just... Go ahead, send me any four photos of your choice and tell me what to do with them and I'll demonstrate what I mean

[secondarysecrets]

Doodles of cute Sophie bc I'm trying to evade all responsibilities such as turning in the assignment that is already 2 weeks late

[neko-mancy]

me watching my mutuals rbing different opinions on the same discourse

[neko-mancy]

[under-the-arch]

Y’all need to learn that it’s ok to disagree with people you’re friends with

[rosetintednightmares]

Forever thinking about that one interview where Diana Wynne Jones was horrified about people wishing to woo Howl

[egglygreg]

I'm going to finally call this Book! Howl and Sophie painting DONE!! It's been like 2 years

[nemesis0001]

Sophie Hatter

"In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes."

Howl's Moving Castle Trilogy by Diana Wynne Jones

[littlesorceries]

Sophie 👏 Wearing 👏 Howl‘s 👏 Clothes 👏

[gabiwnomagic]

The book hits different

[secondarysecrets]

Re: canonical descriptions of characters

I find it absolutely wild how Miss Angorian, the only character in HMC who is explicitly and undeniably described as having brown skin is more often than not pictured with Snow White tier pale skin in fan art. Or fan casts will have someone with maybe lightly tan skin at best

[wrenfea]

People who draw sophie as stereotypically tiktok tiny buttonnose highcheekbone blue eyes pretty biting you biting you biting you

[secondarysecrets]

#SHES SUPPOSED TO HAVE A BIG NOSE AND SHES NOT A BOMBSHELL#SHES VERY MOUSEY LOOKING

Just my two cents but... I always thought the "long nose" thing was a metaphor for being nosey and the "grey little mouse" thing was more aimed at the grey dress and her jumpy demeanor, being overwhelmed by the crowd, not that she looked immutably like a mouse She's described as "very pretty indeed" in the beginning of HMC, in CiTA Abdullah describes her as being as fair as Lettie is dark but otherwise very similar and it is made very clear that Lettie *is* an absolute bombshell, which would logically follow that Sophie is quite pretty too. Also Charmain is envious of how "lovely" she is in HoMW (also mentioning she has blue-green eyes) so like. Ppl have different ideas of what she looks like and it's not exactly non-canon to draw her conventionally pretty or having a glow-up moment post-HMC Book Sophie isn't really canonically particularly insecure about her looks anyway, Miyazaki mostly made that up for the movie. She only briefly compares herself to Miss Angorian in the book but since Miss Angorian is supposed to be extremely beautiful, that isn't saying much

[tchaikovskym]

i still think about how sophie did not kill the spiders in howl's bedroom. that has to be one of the biggest romantic gestures up there, i'm not kidding.

[secondarysecrets]

also just to make it clear I am NOT over my most recent HMC frenzy I am just terribly busy drawing dumb ass boxes and binge reading fics I've read before

[secondarysecrets]

How crazy is it that I discovered a fic I read probably more than 15 years ago and I still remembered some exact lines from it. From the sex scene too. They have been with me all these years

[secondarysecrets]

also just to make it clear I am NOT over my most recent HMC frenzy I am just terribly busy drawing dumb ass boxes and binge reading fics I've read before

[secondarysecrets]

I am petty enough to hide posts from one of my favourite artists because they did a HMC painting recently, said they'd read the book and said Sophie was going to get a "raphaelite hair treatment" but then painted the hair gray. I am really that petty and it's ok bc I was dyyyyying to see a redhead Sophie

[ksfoxwald]

oh man I'm re-reading Fire and Hemlock for the first time in a long time, possibly the first time in my adult life, and like, this book defies so many categories. It's fantasy, but the magic is so subtle until right near the end. It's a book about childhood, but it's not exactly a children's book, and it's nothing like our modern category of "YA." The "No Where/Now Here" vases aren't hugely important to the plot, but they embody everything that this book is thematically. And once I'm done I'm going to have a full essay on the gender of it all, because I'm not saying Polly or Tom are trans, but they both do a lot of transing; the hiding in plain sight, the saying by not saying, the tension between perception and being perceived... there's so much going on here. I always struggled with this one and never really "liked" it as much as I liked Derkholm or Chrestomanci, but so much of it has stuck with me in ways that I keep going back to and being like "oh, I get it now!" which is exactly what Diana intended when she wrote it.

[secondarysecrets]

On an emotional level one may like/dislike Fire and Hemlock or not, but if we look at it as a piece of literature it is absolutely marvellous in how it is constructed. The essay "The Heroic Ideal – A Personal Odyssey" which Diana wrote on it is mindblowing! There are so many levels to that story orchestrated so beautifully.

I think it's truly a shame that due to superficial factors like the protagonist being a young girl; the now very questionable age difference and the fact that DWJ was a woman with a sense of humour who wrote stories that dabble with the supernatural means that F&H will never gain the widespread appreciation it deserves. Because it definitely does. It's a real masterpiece if you look at how it's constructed.

[myhyperfixationisiforgot]

Look it is very important to me that everyone knows that Sophie is also fucking nuts in the book. Everybody always talks about how absurd Howl in the book but Sophie is right there with him.

She's so determined to be the normal sister that she's just actually convinced herself that the magic she is clearly, visibly, blatantly performing happens to everyone. Just. You know. Not anyone around her. The curse wore off weeks ago and she's just totally sure she's happier as an old woman. Her sisters have initiated some complex long-game tomfoolery to switch lives and Sophie also thinks that this is the most logical choice.

Sophie does not move in with a romantic mythic man who treats her right, she moves in with a runaway doctoral candidate who immediately dates her sister and drags her into his family drama. She and Howl are both so afraid of romantic commitment they accidentally trick themselves into becoming life partners. They kill the witch of the waste mostly on a whim, and they argue about which one of them is more impulsive for doing so the whole time.

[secondarysecrets]

That feeling of emptiness when you finish rereading HMC once again... Deep sigh