tbf, i paid for an IQ test because i needed the results to prove i'm capable of understanding my own gender in court. Pretty whack but i heard recently the laws in my country changed so i hope younger trans people won't have to go through that humiliation
as a professional photographer i've come to value lived experiences so much more since starting doing photography. on vacations i'll take a couple of photos of a pretty place or a person (with their consent of course) and then turn off my camera and let myself be in the moment
it saddens me to see people with their phones taking photos of every nook and crany that they'll probably look at once or twice after, and leave without even having seen the beauty around them with their own eyes
funnily enough that's exactly (but opposite) what i told myself before i realised i was a trans man
"oh i play exclusively male characters because they have better armour models and the animations look more immersive, and i prefer to hear a dude talk/groan when i'm in dialogue or get hit. no other reason haha"
my dad once asked me to copy files from his desktop to his disk, and then double and triple asked me if he can now delete the files on his desktop safely
you'd think he'd have had copying files figured out after a decade of owning a laptop, but alas
i ask them what happened to have things turn out like that
if they are the same person as me, and simply decided to pick the most hateful way forward each time a choice was presented to them - i'd probably turn around and try to never think of them again. Because at least for others i can understand how life could've pushed them towards the wrong path. But for myself i know that good choices were always an option, so my evil alternate self would have to consciously act out of spite and hate every time
humble bundle at one point sold a bundle with the works of U K Le Guin, and since i've been meaning to read those, i bought it
all were under amazon DRM
i'm a big fan of being able to do whatever the hell i want with the things i buy so naturally, i got mad and looked for a way to un-DRM them, and i'm happy to say there's a calibre plugin for that. i'm currently enjoying Wizard of Earthsea on my reMarkable
absolutely! the One Ring is much better developed than horcruxes, i was being reductive on purpose there. The Ring is presented as integral to the story from the very beginning and acts like it, serving as a driving force for both the plot and character development for everyone involved. Horcruxes mimic similar characteristics as a literary device but fail to reach the same level of development
anyway this seems like a natural end to the topic, so let me just say thank you for the conversation :) i always appreciate a nice nerd out and analysis of media. hope you have a nice day!
hm i feel like the distinction comes down to vibes here. if i were to be reductive i could describe the One Ring in a similar way "it corrupts gollum, gives Frodo a quest, makes Boromir crave power and turn on his companions in a moment of weakness, and (from Sauron's POV) hobbits destroying it is a deus ex machina". imo horcruxes as an idea were not that bad but,
to me, the main difference here is how they're used in the story. The One Ring is the driving force from the beginning, it's already well established in the lore of the world, and the only surprise to the universe's scholars is how it suddenly found itself in a hobbit's hands. Where horcruxes appear suddenly in the second to last book (obviously not counting the diary because it's clearly been deemed a horcrux when JKR came up with them and thought the diary fit the vibe well enough). First 4 Harry Potter books are bascially episodic, an overaching plot only emerges by the end of book 4. And LOTR is one cohesive story with a clear goal from the beginning, which allows it to unravel in a satisfying and effective way
not to compre whole books to whatever JK Rowling is doing on her tweeter this week (probably transphobia but who knows) but would it be any better if she twote one day "all magic in Harry Potter comes from the divine tree, at the beginning the tree blessed few people with its world bending power of imagination, this is how wizardry began, the tree spoke latin btw."
Besides, the story is more or less a POV of Harry's, a pre-teen to young adult boy who is way more excited to play sports than attend his lessons. Which to me is a good enough reason why we end up knowing fuck all about the magic of his world. If the POV was Hermione's, i'd expect there to be an indepth 3-chapter long research project about her work on a "Origins of Magic" essay for her History of Magic class. But because of the characterisation of Harry and also the tension in the story by the end, it makes sense to me why Harry doesn't really care about how things work, but how effective they can be. The question wasn't "wow a horcrux? incredibly rare black magic, i must study it to understand how and why it works to one day maybe be able to undo it", the question was "horcrux huh? and it makes voldie immortal-ish? alright lads, let's find a way to smash it"
and to answer your question - horcruxes of all things are pretty well elaborated on. Voldemort splits his soul and attaches it to objects/people. The price? A part of his soul and another person's life. The purpose? Ability to be recreated from each of those pieces, achieving immortality-ish, as long as he has someone living to do the ritual, and his father's skeleton still has some bones left ig. The limitation seems to be that he looks evil after being reborn? and i think there was some implication that the process is incredibly painful on the spiritual level
i think a better example would be the sorting hat because wtf is that. is that a person turned into a hat? is it an enchanted object? it can talk in your mind, can read your soul to then sort you into a house, a sword can come out of it when it feels you're in need and worthy of it? No explanation, no described limitations, a power to read one's mind in later books is attributed mostly to voldemort & looking at how Harry handles it it's incredibly emotionally exhausting. how can that hat be more powerful than the most powerful evil wizard?
i wasn't really thinking of star wars, moreso LOTR if anything, the magic there is the textbook definition of "a wizard did it" and yet despite that it's a beloved series and very few call for Gandalf's powers to have an understandable magical system behind them. but that's a gourmet meal of a book & the trilogy movie series, harry potter is junk food, enjoyable as long as you don't think too hard about what the ingredients are
naleśniki :3
and it's the same in poland, i'd call what you made a pancake in poland, but in the UK i'd call it a crêpe