Magic, As Shaped By Childhood Desires

Okay I thought of a system of magic that'd be fitting for a story about abuse and getting past it. Basically magic is something that grants a person born with it powers based on their childhood experiences, powers can change a lot during childhood but become "solid" after puberty. For example my MC's are two eight year olds who were raised on a isolated manor by their abusive grandmother, they accidently killed her and were found living on the streets and placed with foster parents. Since they only had each over for companionship and love they developed the ability to create "imaginary friends", beings they could only see and possesed powers like lightning fires, possesing people, ecetera. Due to their dependence on each over they need to be togethor to summon any given friends. Any other powers and abused kid might gain?

 

I honestly think that what you have is good, and good enough. The imaginary friends can do a great deal of good for fighting off enemies, but it was wise to include the catch that the twins have to be together - otherwise it'd be too easy to have a "There's an unbeatable gang of dark lords coming to get me? No problem! *calmly summons imaginary armies*" type of character. And honestly, having too many powers can have that effect, too. Limiting it to one, maybe two but no more, powers is best. Having too-powerful characters makes them constantly unkillable, or even unphasable, in a way that's annoying to read about.

 

They're cousins by the way.

 

Also how could their powers react to being placed with decent foster parents?

 

Maybe they'd subside a little bit and so the cousins would have to work and practice harder in order to keep them.

I like the idea of a balance between their powers and the real world, so that the quality of their own life's situation is inversely related to the powers that compensate.

 

Although their grandmother and parents kept their powers into adulthood.

 

I'm not saying the powers would be gone completely. Just that they ebb and fluctuate to reflect your life. By the time they're, say, 5, the power is already determined by whatever issue they struggled with most in their forming years. Let's say at age 10-15, their life is more stable in a way that they no longer have that problem, so their powers are very weak and sometimes can't be used. But then later, if they're 20 and they are in a bad situation where they face their problem all over again, the powers are strong again. You can have your powers all your life, they just come and go and get weaker and stronger in a way that varies inversely to your life.

At least that's how I'd do it.

 

Any effect puberty could have?

 

So what powers would be usfuel for somone to keep a manor undetected and isolated, and torture children?

 

You were a child once. Tap into that.

Exercise your imagination!