Avatar

i'm dying! to death!

@megaphonemonday / megaphonemonday.tumblr.com

Kate | she/her/hers blog on the side | elegantstupidity on ao3
Posts
Avatar
reblogged
captainmarvel
Avatar
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.

#hmmm...#things to consider#howl's moving castle
Avatar
reblogged
lerayon
Avatar
yetanothergreyjedi

that is the face of a man worried he will be next

Avatar
ashtraythief
Avatar
luulapants

Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.

Avatar
whetstonefires

crane husband.....

Avatar
roach-works

this is the diametric opposite of all those awful swan wife stories and i love it.

Avatar
alex51324

(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:

  • Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  
  • As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  
  • It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  
  • Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  
  • The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.
  • They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   
  • Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  
  • Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  
  • Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  
  • It worked!  
  • Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  
  • However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)
  • Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird.  White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive.  (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)  
Avatar
thesylverlining

Legit cannot pick the funniest part of this

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"

Avatar
anais-ninja-bitch

just had to explain this post to my father bc he thought my stifled laughter was a signal of illness.

well done, everyone, good game. hit the showers.

Avatar
largishcat
Avatar
eshlimoriarty
Avatar
lazorsandparadox

Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes

Avatar
queersatanic

the “this content has been removed for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines” notice really adds a lot of flavor to this post and somehow makes it MORE obscene than whatever that actually was

Avatar
worldheritageposts-official

World Heritage Post

#still a little sad#that chris crowe#was not deemed#yuletide eligible#walnut is though#long post
Avatar
reblogged
isilienelenihin
Avatar
jadedanddark

I died but I came back exactly the same. You though, I came back and you were wrong. Did the fact of my dying really damage you that much? Was bringing me back worth what it cost you? Would it have been better to just leave me?

#i love it
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.