i love that hc so much and it fits him so well! like no one taught him bc hyrule was mostly empty, and he wouldnt even know he had it himself because why would he! its genius!

Sure, I’m happy to info-dump lmao.

I know other people have already come up with the "Wild has magic" headcanon about botw before, but for me it honestly started as a series of jokes with a friend. Basically it made sense to me since all the other Champions’ abilities are either outwardly shown to be magic like with Mipha and Urbosa, or at least implied to be, as in the case of Daruk’s magic being hereditary, and Revali’s being something no other Rito has managed to achieve.

So we were both like “oh yeah, he’s got to have magic” *cue shitposts and memes*

There’s minor evidence to support its existence in botw; Teba says to Wild “it was as if time stopped with every arrow you let fly”, and Daruk’s Training Journal mentions that Link once told him that it feels like time slows down when he focuses. Some people take this to mean Wild has really good reflexes and others went with magic. I’m in the ‘Wild has magic’ camp bc someone did the math and worked out he’s like… almost moving at super-sonic speeds when he closes the distance to start a flurry rush.

The reason I say he can’t really control it is bc the only time he’s ever shown being able to do so is to enter and exit bullet time. That’s literally it. If you dodge at the right moment, even if you don’t want to flurry rush, it’ll still trigger and give you the opening to perform one (which ends after like 1-2 seconds of inaction). Wild also doesn’t have a magic meter like some other Links do; he uses his stamina. He’s literally brute-forcing his way through his magic (which, side note, Urbosa must’ve hated watching). And, to build off that last sentence, this means that Wild probably doesn’t have a lot of magic, but he does recover it incredibly fast – especially compared to the others who have to use potions. More on this last part in a moment.

It’s true that no one was there to teach him per se, but I think it’s a tad more complicated than that bc botw has an odd thing where it shows a lot of magic users (at least as far as I understand when compared to other games) but doesn't go into detail, which is fair given the Calamity. This means we don't really have a concept of how prevalent magic usage is in the grand scheme of things.

Looking at the series in a whole, for hylians/humans magic is largely limited to the Royal Family (specifically the women of the Royal Family), and they seem to mostly wield light and divine magic, very different from time magic. (The Ocarina of Time is there, but that’s an heirloom and not severely limited with its function based on whether its user has royal blood or not.)

And given how the Sheikah have been treated in botw's Hyrule's history, as they are the only other hylians aside from Flora and Wild who are shown using magic, I'm guessing it's not a skill you want to encourage, and innate magic users, even if they weren't Sheikah, were probably affected by the roll-on effect of the genocide for a very long time. This would create a long, deep-set history of missing knowledge that eventually affects the present.

If you ignore the potential loss of magic teaching, honestly I would assume it’s still hard to teach someone magic when you don’t share that particular type bc it probably requires knowledge that you don't have in regards to how it flows and can be controlled in order to be used. I do very genuinely believe Wild knew that he had magic before he died tho, bc I think Urbosa would’ve told him. It was the only time she ever heard him speak and the convo went something like Urbosa: you have magic. You just did magic. Link: nuh-uh Urbosa: FYM NUH-UH

This lack of training and general knowledge of how magic works is what I partially attribute to his weapons breaking as fast as they do. Attunement doesn’t actually exist obviously, but in fantasy worlds where it’s a part of the magic system, it’s a conscious step. It’s only seems to become an involuntary one when the person attuning the item has a lot of experience with the field that item is used in.

What I mean by that is Wild’s obviously never learnt actual theory (and it might be too late to fix the groundwork he's already laid), so he’s only ever been able to make his magic work in conjunction with the one thing he’s already being trained to do: weapon-fighting.

This is why he has flurry rushes, bullet time, and his fast recharge time. His magic manifests alongside his physical capabilities (so it will recover just as fast as his stamina does) and is attuned to flow through physical objects that simply aren't designed to withstand prolonged exposure to it (so his weapons, bows and shields will degrade and break faster).

I do believe his magic is something he has the ability to train (take the change to how bullet time uses stamina between botw and totk for example), and I personally like to write him getting a one-hit-swing second of slowed down time whenever he parries, but I think these ‘upgrades’ would honestly just come from fighting more and pushing himself in those situations, not from learning basic magic principles lmao.

And honestly, Wild’s magic is just really funny to me bc it has shenanigan potential that’s really only limited by your own creativity and his stamina wheel.

I say that because part of this magic headcanon actually grew from a post-totk headcanon where I whole-heartedly believe that Wild and Flora end up sharing the Sage of Time title, since there’s one extra Secret Stone floating around and they both specialise in different types of time magic. The joke w/ my friend has now become “well, if Wild can’t even willingly activate his magic unless highly specific circumstances are met, wtf is going to happen when it's amplified?"

Answer: he has literally no idea what he’s doing. He has accidentally slowed time on several pots/ladles/plates/etc that got knocked over, mistakenly frozen a yiga sword which yanked it straight out of the yiga’s hand – he meant to freeze the yiga whoops – and intentionally managed to slow time on one (1) bokoblin (and has not managed to replicate that result since). … he’s getting there. Maybe.

Kinda muddled cause I'm just trying to get some thoughts down. But I'm wondering if maybe the school was some kind of artificial well? Some way that the wizards could hoard magic for themselves, making their magic easier / them more powerful, but dependant on only a small number of people drawing from that well. That's why they kept themselves secret, why magic imploded once everyone in the world knew about it, and also why Tad's original purpose was to keep the wizarding population down.

It could also be why the magic is 'stuck' at the mouths of the funnels and forming the islands - if ritual or whatever used to steal the magic was still somewhat in place it could still be preventing the magic from re-entering the original whole, but not be strong enough to keep it in the artificial well.

I think magic in Once Upon a time can either be innate, gifted or taught. I've always headcanoned that Zelena inherited her magic and risk of turning green from her biological father's side. And at the same time, Regina offered to teach Henry magic in 2x02. I don't think Emma or Rumple's brand of magic is inheritable as Rumple was cursed and Emma has magic because she is the project of true love. Unless Regina suspected that Emma and Henry's father were true loves, she must have been aware that magic can be taught to just about anyone.

It seems that those with innate magic are generally more powerful. Zelena, Elsa, Ingrid and Anastasia Tremaine are considered to be very powerful, for example. And Alice Jone's wish magic and ability to create life from nothing have potentially limitless possibilities. The exceptions to this rule, according to dialogue within the show are Rumple, Pan and Merlin, all of which were either gifted or cursed as opposed to being taught.

Wip intro

Levels

1st level is for children and the untrained.

2nd level is already basic training and control.

3rd level is professional level for jobs.

4th level is a serious level for high positions. Two 4th level mages can take down small armies.

5th level is the highest both from capacity and skill standpoint.

Theory

You can't reach it with magic that absolutely doesn't suit you, that's why Acacia doesn't have in her born magic type, but Xander and Kyler do - signs they have their most fitting type. Wes struggles to get to the 4th level in Pulsor magic because it's just that difficult when it doesn't suit you.

Magic is mindset. It's what you believe, how you think, what you value and what methods and goals you feel are right. It's the what and the how and the why for how you live. You change your mind and beliefs and the same magic type won't work for you.

On the other side if you can reprogram your mindset, learn to think certain way on command and on purpose, you can use more than one magic. That's what Hybrid mages can do and that's why there is such a stigma going on against them - because most people don't understand how you can distance yourself from what you the principles and ways you were born and taught in, that you can just make yourself focus on other things and switch your magic for something else.

Types

Each magic type requires certain mindset, emotions and focus.

(...)

Thank you. This tea is delicious... Doctor, why are my sigils and spells so useless? I couldn't help them and I couldn't even protect myself. I know my practice and I are still young... What even is essokinesis? How is it different from magic and transmutation? They could transform and distort things at will, even living beings!

Actual Question: How reality warping differs from magic? I know there IS a difference. Essokinesis in media like: Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is easy to understand, but Wanda/Vision... Smh. The people of Westview were either victims of her mind stone-granted telepathy/psionics or a powerful mind control spell born of her chaos magic. The "rewriting" of objects could be attributed to a complex transmutation spell. I'm not saying there is no reality warping in it, of course there is. The black & white, the display resolution, the passage of time. But the people of Westview still having some level of awareness... MCU!Agatha chose to demonstrate transmutation and mind control to Wendy and described the creation of the Hex as multiple spells being cast at the same time. Magic on autopilot.

Please, ignore me talking about WV. I know you don't want to think about it. I understand. I was just trying to better illustrate my point.

Love what you do in this blog. I'm reading Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins and honestly? More people should LOVE Magical Marvel and Stephen.

Well, my young witch. I’m not the most recommended person to guide you in the matters of witchcraft, but I can guide you towards the right direction, that is, the right teachers haha

Actual answer now: I believe reality warping is related to science in the sense that it’s connected to space and time. For instance, when Gamora stole the Infinity Stones and created the Infinity Warps. There was no magic involved.

But there is the possibility that this warping is also connected to magic, in the sense that you’re able to manipulate and reshape it through the mystic energies (Wiccan and Scarlet Witch are the best examples I can think of). To some degree, I believe that transmutation is actually warping reality with a little touch of magic.

Still, not all magic is considered warping reality because you’re merely drawing the power from entities or tapping into energies that ignore natural laws. It’s not like you “cheat” and change reality, as many scientists in the Marvel universe believe it to be. It’s an entire new field that is based on mystic energy. When you’re astral projecting, you’re not warping reality. You’re merely manifesting your soul beyond your body.

Of course, this is purely my opinion. I could be totally wrong. That’s just how I tell them apart.

Oh, and thank you for understanding my point of view about the MCU! I will definitely not get into that haha.

I’m glad you’re reading Darkhold! I’m still waiting for the new volume with Wanda and Doom to be released... Since the pandemic, there’s no news about this book. I hope you’re having a great time! Thank you for leaving a message!

I'm still not over the fact that basically, Peter compared Nightingale to Beyoncé (yeah, yeah, I know - context, but still), bless his heart :'D

That was hilarious, but I also loved it more broadly as a really interesting metaphor for supernatural power and how the Rivers work and the limits and trade-offs of being a deity who also goes to university and has a pint down the pub. Peter discusses in Lies Sleeping how really big river systems have multiple deities and I think this is a good illustration of why - too much focused attention is conversely restricting. 

“Yeah, but your scientists mages were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” (Well, to be fair, they did question whether they should… and agreed to keep going.)

A discussion on the flaws of magic and its impact would have been a very interesting theme in the game. Natasha and Knoll scrape the surface of it when they talk about dark magic being founded on knowledge, and light magic being founded on faith.

In the case of dark magic, how far are you willing to go to unveil its power? Lyon was willing to cross the boundaries of life and death to resurrect his father, but this resurrected Vigarde is just a puppet with no will of his own, with no conscience that defined the man he used to be.

In the case of light magic, what exactly defines the faith that powers it? The blinder the devotion, the more powerful the spells become? How far are you allowed to question your beliefs before your magical ability begins to falter? Riev also clearly shows that light magic is not powered by faith in any particular deity; he is a faithful devotee of Fomortiis, yet his Light magic has not been hindered in any way.

Anima magic isn’t as essential to FE8′s story (and is also at a disadvantage against Dark magic which is prevalent in late-game), but it is established as nature-based magic. It presents an interesting relationship in the magic triangle; faith overcomes knowledge, knowledge overcomes nature, and nature overcomes faith.

If you subscribe to the idea that Lyon and his dark magic experimentation inadvertently caused the earthquake (a natural disaster) he foresaw — while under the belief the experiments would prevent it — it makes you wonder if there were very practical reasons why dark magic was denounced and buried. Like you said, it has a lot of parallels to science; like, “Yay! DDT gets rid of the pests eating our crops! …Oh, and it’s also wreaking havoc on the environment, causing diseases in animals and humans, and pests are growing resistant to it thanks to improper usage.”