(re)introducing my ghibli fanschool's first dorm, serencor!! + a member and it's dorm leader! more info about the dorm and SBA itself below the cut!
SBA is a co-ed school! first and foremost, dorms for incoming students are decided by the new student throwing a log into the blazing furnace (calcifer!). whichever color it glows indicates the dorm that the student goes to! to actually get to the dorm, they use howl's magic door to get to the pocket dimensions.
the pocket dimension for serencor consists of rolling, grassy hills, that a castle similar to howl's endlessly roams. the skies at night are always clear enough to see the stars. the housewarden (who, as of now, is heather) controls where the castle itself moves.
serencor is kind of like the heartslabyul of SBA... it's weird and wacky and has a lot of clutter inside of its rooms, but it's beautiful. i'm thinking that maybe serencor and the future kiki dorm are rivals in magical prowess since theyre based on a wizard and witch respectively
as for traditions, i'd like to think there's a tradition related to hat-making to honor sophie! i also think itd be interesting for there to be a school-wide festival about calcifer and how howl swallowed the dying star and gave calcifer his heart...
as always, explanations for both name and design will be under the cut! (SPOILER WARNING FOR HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE)
so, let's start with the etymology for the names:
seren: 'star' in welsh; the star part is a reference to howl's backstory and how he caught calcifer (a falling star) and binded them together. i specifically chose welsh because in the original novel (according to the wiki), howl jenkins pendragon was originally howell jenkins of wales.
cor: 'heart' in latin; again, a reference to howl's backstory when he gives his heart to calcifer!
wizard of ingary: this is just howl's actual title LOL
moving onto the design...
starting off with the star in the middle, like earlier, is a reference to howl's backstory.
the diamond-print shield shape in the background is based off howl's iconic coat. the gold part also has a stripe of the color of sophie's dress! additionally, the ribbon for the name of the dorm is the color of the ribbon on sophie's hat!
lastly, the flames are a reference to calcifer while the brown parts are from the actual castle.
now, here are some ideas i have for the dorm itself and things about it:
so, before anything, i do want to clarify that the dorms have pocket dimensions like nrc's. now that we have that out of the way...
I THINK ITD BE SOOOO COOL IF THE ACTUAL DORM WAS JUST THE MOVING CASTLE REPURPOSED!! an endless expanse of hills for the castle to roam!! i think itd be cool if the housewarden (who would supposedly be twisted from howl) was the one who controlled where it went
also i think when night time in the dorm comes, the night sky would be superrr pretty. little to no clouds, no light pollution, all the stars twinkling in the deep blue... i feel like it would be a very famous view on magicam hehe
i think it'd be super cute if there was a dorm tradition of hat-making that's meant to honor sophie,,
im going to draw the dorm uniforms soon, but i definitely want to include howl's coat, the star motif, and maybe i'll add some elements of sophie's outfit! very fantasy steampunk vibes
