I am a goddamn delight

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.

T'Pel asking with pure Vulcan sarcasm if they had fun and in the middle of Tuvok replying that Vulcans only do their duty not have Fun, Janeway (still slightly hungover and wearing sunglasses) slings an arm around his shoulders and says, "SO MUCH fun. You should've been there, T'Pel. You should've seen the way your man risked it all to save my sorry ass from a sentient liquid people. We almost died again."

T'Pel: "Again?"

Tuvok: "....we meditated after."

i almost forgot to fill this out but i knocked out a lot of boxes in one.

Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.

Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”

It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.

It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.

“Ah,” Grace says.

“That,” Rocky says.

“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”

Everyone brings a dish to share. A table full of endless choices stands before you. Some dishes are labeled correctly, others arnt. Some are extra spicy so read notes and tags about the dishes.

But as you go down the table, you have the choice for what you put on your plate. Don't pick up the pasta if you're gluten-free. Avoid the stew if you don't like onions.

You have a choice again when you sit down and take a bite. Was the tater tot casserole not really what you wanted anymore? Cool, stop eating it.

Fandom is a potluck and you have a choice to not consume the things you don't like. You don't get a choice over what others bring to the potluck. You don't get to police others for what they want to eat either.

Don't be mad that we brought egg salad when you hate it. You're the one that is forcing yourself to eat it when we told you exactly what it is.

Don't like something? Don't put it on your plate and eat it. You do not get to be a bully and be mad that someone brought it and someone else likes it.

The fandom isn't all about you and your likes. We don't have to cater to you.

If you have a deadly nut allergy, you're probably going to have to skip the unlabeled brownies, because you don't know if they're safe for you. That sucks, but it's your responsibility to avoid things that you're sensitive to. Similarly, if you're triggered by noncon but you're reading a minimally labeled fic that the author chose not to use archive warnings on, you are the one rolling the dice there.

Lxc: nonprofit ed who got promoted way too young with no management experience who is excellent at executing the mission and whose heart is in the right place but bless his heart you would not put him in charge of a pet rock because the pet rock would die. Gets away with an incredible amount of dysfunction because he's really nice. The person in charge of operations is g-d's strongest soldier and whatever they are getting paid it's not enough.

Nmj: ex military blue collar union guy. Thinks he's very fair and moral and thinks he runs a tight ship because he whips out drill sergeant stuff when people aren't acting right, meanwhile the amount of hazing going on would shame a british prep school. Confuses "yelling at staff" for "addressing the problem." If you're bringing problems with your coworkers to him then you're the one at fault. Man up and work harder. Does inspire big loyalty though.

Jiang Fengmian: checked out head of a family business who swears *he's * not the one bringing his family problems to work, it's his family doing that (he is absolutely doing that). Always says he's going to give people bonuses and always forgets. Actively jeopardizing the business with the family shit he refuses to deal with. Lets his kids and wife terrorize staff and then at most is like "now now, see this is why I can't finalize a succession plan."

Jin Guangshan: do I even need to say it.

Wen Ruohan: fully insane and delusional tech ceo who genuinely believes that like. If they don't build a superintelligence on the moon then the libs will win. Basically peter Thiel.

Wei Wuxian: startup nutcase. Sends you 10 emails for immediate reply at 3am. Misses your scheduled check in because he just HAD to try his new idea Right Now. Ethics and testing are for people who won't be remembered by history. Eats your lunch out of the fridge even when you lable it.

Jiang Cheng: he's on 30 under 30, his org is tight, they are famous for getting things done and done well, but nobody who works there smiles and its because boss man has never said a single nice thing about anyone's work and is always pissed off. Regularly makes staff cry by just saying mean shit. Sadly, he does not mean any of it and doesn't understand why turnover is so high. He does pay really well and the perks are great but is that enough to make up for him taking everything personally and making everything personal?

What makes the villain the villain (inasmuch as it's useful to examine TLT characters through that kind of simplistic lens) is that when the chips are down and he has to choose, his priority is punishing the wicked, not saving the people left behind.

I would invite anyone whose engagement with their cause consists of finding the 'correct' group of people to hate, to consider whether 'evil emperor' is the next career move you see yourself taking, and if it isn't, to gently suggest disembarking from the hate train.