🌀🎨🐅⭐️

Also after googling her, I found out that she’s also designed Sylveon–another favorite PKMN of mine. She’s also illustrated some very pretty Pokemon cards!!

source: x

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.