i'm such a huge fucking fan of having and using magic requiring effort. whether mental, physical, or both. i'm so fond of magic systems that make you sweat, bleed, cry and get your hands dirty when you use them. i love it when powers are earned, not inherent, through years of study and/or exercizing them like a muscle. and i love it when a seemingly effortless display of power is terrifying because of this.
as a child I wondered why adults were so stupid (doing things out of habit/routine/heuristics rather than reasoning explicitly about what to do based on their goals) and the answer is that adults are unimaginably fucking tired all the time
The social attitude regarding age is consistently getting weirder. You’re not ‘pushing 30’ you’re just in your late 20s. 30 is not old and neither is 40 while I’m at it. Growing older is an enormous privilege and displaying that age is a gorgeous component of life. Spending your days trying to reverse that grace breeds an eternally wasted life.