We are not made to be alone

but still, sometimes, things surprise me. and i was surprised today. because today an old man approached me at the park. and he said, you know, im a pediatrician.

which is already a weird start to a conversation, because i didnt know that. and maybe i should have just rolled with it, but instead i went

wait. i dont know that. why did you think i knew that?

which didn't even put him slightly off balance.

cuz you're bald, he said, so confidently that i didnt even question it until the conversation was over. now. i was - i was over there, sitting -

and he gestured across the park to a giant pile of soft dirt that had an almost cartoonishly exaggerated ass print on it which derailed me for the second time. right? because whoever sat on that dirt, clearly, had an ass like two coconuts being fired out of a spanish cannon. whereas this man had an ass that could probably only be detected with powerful scientific instruments. i told him this in more succint terms by simply saying that was clearly not his buttprint.

now at this point we'd gotten derailed twice, and as unflappable as he'd been the first time, he was starting to get a little defensive. so he said perhaps someone with a large butt sat down after i got up, and i said why are you lying about where you were sitting, and he said why would i do that? and i said if i knew, i wouldnt be asking, and he said fine, i was driving by - and i said why didn't you just say you were driving by?!?!?!?! and he said because i didn't want you to think i was the kind of crazy person that would just stop his car to tell a stranger in a park that he, as a pediatrician, could tell that your parents REALLY cared about tummy time!

then he left. angrily. he actually stomped back to his car. i dont know when i started laughing but i didnt stop until i got home. my voice is still all scratchy right now. ive been in a little bit of a writing funk but i had to get this down while i could still remember it so perfectly.

and people are SO eager to blame hamlet for everything in the play (which is a tragedy, thinks are kind of required to go wrong) meanwhile Claudius, the guy who murdered his brother and basically tells his grieving nephewson that its gay and stupid for him to be mourning his dead father a month after he died because its now his unclefather and motheraunt's wedding, somehow gets off scott free despite being the actual reason for the entire play's plot. you see what i'm getting at here?????

Closest match: Psylliodes chrysocephala genome assembly, chromosome: 4 Common name: Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle

That detail struck me as really interesting from a psychological perspective, because it makes Rapunzel feel like an active participant in the ritual and gives her the impression that she has control over if, when, and how she uses her power. It's not Gothel coldly and impersonally taking something from her; instead, it's Rapunzel willingly and actively giving it to her.

Not only is it manipulation 101, it shows Gothel creating a system where Rapunzel feels responsible for how Gothel is feeling (physically). A situation where Gothel can say, "You wouldn't want mother to grow old and die, do you?" A world in which Gothel's death would be directly on Rapunzel's head, because she did nothing to stop it.

But this leads directly to a few linked theories of mine: 1) the Healing Incantation is more effective the more the caster means it. 2) Stress speeds up the aging process, even after magical youthening. 3) The effects of the flower don't last as long the more it's used.

We know, from the prologue of the movie, that Gothel used to allow herself to get very old before using the flower.

This is her right before the guards arrive. Her hair is fully grey, she's toothless, her voice is craggy, her hands are gnarled.

She probably did this for a few reasons. 1) It was difficult to get to, and she didn't want to make the trip more than was necessary. 2) She didn't want to draw attention to the flower by being seen coming and going regularly. Interesting, this also implies that it wasn't originally youth and beauty she was after, but eternal life. When she had to rely on getting to the flower to use it, she went as infrequently as she felt she could get away with. Didn't allow herself to get as old as she was the first time she found it

because she wanted to be able-bodied enough that it wasn't a struggle reaching it, but she didn't use its power as often as she did once she had Rapunzel.

(The screencap above is after the magic is already being used, so she's already started de-aging.)

And the older Rapunzel got, the more frequently Gothel used the magic, until she was using it daily or every other day, even when she only felt "a little run-down."

Grey streaks in her hair, fine lines around her mouth and eyes, and a liver spot on her hand. But all in all, you don't look at this woman and think, "She looks old!"

So, back to my first point. When Rapunzel youthens her in a few minutes, she sings quickly through the song, so much so that Gothel yelps at her to wait, gets youthened in a flash, then chastises at her for hurrying through it. The other times we see Rapunzel heal as a young adult, she's slow and careful and methodic, and we know that when Eugene had died, she didn't think it was going to work, but she had also never meant the words more. (This, I believe, is part of why the magic responded and performed one last supreme miracle.)

But! The next time Rapunzel encounters Gothel after that rapid healing, she looks like this.

(Contrast adjusted to see her better.)

This is after less than 24 hours since she'd been youthened that morning. Grey streaks in her hair, lines around her mouth. And this is at most a few hours, in universe, since the last time the audience sees her.

No grey hair at all, that we can see.

And then, the next time we see her after the campsite scene, she's the oldest we've seen her since the prologue.

Contrasted adjusted so we can see. Her hair has gotten quite grey by now, her hands are starting to get knobbly, the lines around her mouth are more severe, there's even additional age lines closer to her bottom lip. I'm sure if we saw the straight character model in plain lighting, it would be even more obvious.