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.
real talk i have become a problem recently. the hospital wanted my fingerprint and i said no. the receptionist was like: but its such a convenient way to check in! and i said ok i dont want you to have my biometric data. and she was so baffled. i said, can you not check me in using an id card?
well of course but dont you want to provide your biometric data for your convenience?
[ID: two sketches of a fuzzy little spider. The first sketch is standing still. The second sketch is identical but has the pedipalps (little spider face thingies) turned in to touch each other + two hand emojis doing the shy finger touch underneath it. End ID.]
I have assembled for you all a collection of cutiepie jumping spiders holding their pedipalps together. All images from iNaturalist (not AI !!).
A cheeto-orange spider with medium-length hairs and brown eyes. it has shiny green chelicherae. It is perched on a person's finger. [Florida, USA.]
A brown spider crouching close to the ground. Its eyes are dark brown and its pedipalps are extra fluffy. [Netanya, Israel.]
A spider with bold patterning standing on the ground. Its head is black with a wide white stripe wrapped around under the eyes. Its legs are black with a sprinkling of orange hairs. Its pedipalps are white with black tips. Its eyes are iridescent mauve-black. [Koura, Lebanon.]
(more below, it's a long post)
A pale tan spider among beach debris. It is densely hairy with emerald-green eyes. [Haifa, Israel.]
A golden-brown spider perches on the heads of a couple dry flowerheads. Its eyes are brown; its lower face and chelicerae are cream. Its fluff is short. [Bloemfontein, South Africa.]
A brown spider on a pebble. Its legs have black stripes, and it has a white ring around each brown eye. Its pedipalps have rows of long white hairs. [Yiz'rael, Israel]
A spider perched on a narrow stem. Its head is blocky and orange, reminiscent of a loaf of bread. Its eyes are black. Its legs and pedipalps are tan with dark markings. [Be'er Sheva, Israel]
A spider on a flat surface. It is patterned black and white. Its eyes are iridescent black. There is a large patch of red fur under its eyes. the ends of its pedipalps are grey floofs. [Florida, USA.]
A yellow-brown spider on fabric. Its eyes are dark brown. It has a mix of short and long hair. Its chelicerae are smooth chestnut brown. Its pedipalps have long blond hair. [B'nei Brak, Israel.]
A spider on fabric. It has dark brown eyes. Its legs have brown and blond stripes. Its hairs are moderately long. Its chelicerae are blond with rows of extra-long hairs. [Texas, USA.]
A cream-colored spider on a leaf. It has dark brown eyes and is densely hairy. It has some brown stripes on its legs and pedipalps. [Queenstown, South Africa.]
A spider perched on the edge of something. It is covered with long white fur, apart from the top of its head which has short orange hairs. Its eyes are metallic green. [Melbourne, Australia.]
do you think steam just magically comes out of nowhere im so sick of these people who dont understand steampunk it makes me want to get into my submersible bathysphere and never reemerge
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