I have been honing my magic system in my worldbuilding and writing for quitw some time now.
More often than not I bump into a problem where I want to try and fix a problem with just “lol magic” and I have so fsr resisted the temptation and instead found some other, cool way to make thibgs happen in my setting.
I for example wanted to make a doppelganger race, but ibstead of just making a humanoid race that just has an innate magical ability to swap their appearance, I instead based it on their biology by making it into an alien ameaba like species that can steal DNA from other species to gain the ability to change into that form.
The opposite is also true. I tried to make an evolutionary lineage of hydras, but it proved impossible from a darwinian evolutionary standpoint. So instead I made them the result of some messed up magic instead.
Anything resembling Tinkerbell is out (small, wings, fairy dust etc.)
Anything that relies on wordplay to play tricks or otherwise bamboozle people? Also right out. Tee hee we’re so smart I said “give me your name I’ll tell you mine” and you thought it meant one thing when actually it meant another!
My reaction to all such fairies: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/702/642/ba4
idk maybe because it feels unfair to people to use a naturally ambiguous language like English to forge ironclad verbal contracts out of at random, I’m a man of the people, not the fey elite who kneel at the boot of their monarchs…
You just know that fairies ain’t playing by the same rules if you ever try the same thing to them. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
…Is what I would say if we lived close by. My point is, secular people can enjoy symbolism and beautiful rituals too, and they don’t have to involve supernatural worship or psychedelic substances.
You would think, having driven 500+ miles South, out of Scotland no less, things would be warmer. That I would not be wrapped up in bed, using the heat of the laptop to encourage warmth.
Mother Gothel is one of the most frighteningly realistic Disney villains, along with Gaston, is that there’s a chance you know real people like them. It hits closer to home in the Russian dub because Gothel uses language that my parents used to guilt-trip and belittle me in my childhood.
Also, I appreciate how Tangled entirely sticks to its fantasy theme. There are no anachronistic songs, or gratuitous references to modern culture, or fourth wall jokes. It’s a sweet fantasy story that isn’t ashamed of being one, and has broad applicability. I actually think it has the potential to age better than Frozen, and it already might have.
