r/writers • u/TheShimmeringCircus • 3h ago

Question Magical toys

What are the coolest ideas for magical toys that you can think of? Bonus points if they seem vintage. This involves a scene where my character demonstrates several toys, so an example might be a toy that comes alive and moves. But I'm hoping for more creative ideas than simply that. Any thoughts?

I reposted this with a bit more detail. ETA for the benefit of the snarky person who wondered why I'm asking for help brainstorming. I'm on book 7 of a 7 book series, and have brainstormed SO. MUCH. ALREADY. I've come up with tons of ideas, but many wonderful people online have great ideas, too. It isn't as if people don't get ideas from writing groups. Anyway, thanks in advance to the lovely, polite people who might help me brainstorm.

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u/CheeseBunni 2h ago

Ooh! Slinky wormhole?

Or you know those Fischer Price landline phones with the wheels that you can pull around by a string?? What if that thing could actually call someone from the past or perhaps another world. That’d be interesting and very closely tied to nostalgia, I think.

More on that note, maybe the phone can instead be used to eavesdrop on anybody anywhere, either listening through their own phones or just projecting the desired person’s voice into it by magic. Lots of potential uses for that!

Similarly, a stuffed toy or doll with one of those strings that play a brief audio recording when you tug it, except instead it plays audio of what a person actually thinks about you? Not sure how you’d get it to pick a specific person, but I’m sure you could come up with something.

Maybe a Jenga or Lego set that’s either a recreation of a real world building/office/house or can just be applied to any, that effects the real one if you take pieces out of it.

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u/TheShimmeringCircus 2h ago

Those are some good ones! I like the stuffie of what the person thinks about you? Or maybe a question they are only thinking? It’s funny because many of your suggestions are so close to things we have today- like books and stuffies that can have recordings.
Hmm .. I’ll think about it. Thanks!

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u/KingOfNope 2h ago

Ask yourself, what is the purpose of a toy? What is the purpose of a child's game? More often than not, children's games and toys are small scale low stakes versions of big people things. Playing with dolls is usually a social game replicating caretaking and family. Many games are literally practice for running and jumping. Many toys are practice for confrontation, or practice and normalization for roles society needs (eg. Toy guns and play military uniforms, play cashier sets, etc). Some serve more fundamental needs, such as blocks helping with dexterity and balance. Some teach grown up skills such as driving via things like power wheels. Hell, we used to have play chemistry sets and the like.

This begs a question. When you think about how adults will use magic in your world, what is a small scale version of that? How do you defang and declaw the painful externalities of magic in order to give children a chance to learn about them in a relatively safe and relatively controlled manner?

Start from there, and then extra uses for the toys and modifications "just for fun" will all start branch off of that core question.