#smarter goals

[comradekatara]

I feel like I see ppl say that ozai is dumb (and I totally get why, because he’s extremely shallow to the point of looking downright foolish) but honestly..... is he?? is ozai dumb, is zhao dumb, is zuko dumb, or all they all just men from the fire nation who were taught to embody a certain aggressive, active, prideful, impulsive, violent, reckless, singleminded mode of masculinity that praised them for certain behaviors and virtues such as strength and power and condemned any man who didn’t align with these values?

ozai is smart enough to seize and maintain power over the fire nation, which is his life’s primary goal. zhao is smart enough to invade the north pole, which was impenetrable for the past century of war, and while destroying the moon obviously is not a sensible thing to do, it does carry out his intended effect, which is to debilitate his enemies and demonstrate the sheer force of his power.

zhao’s lack of accounting for the spirits can be attributed directly to the fact that a key aspect of fire nation propaganda is denying spiritualism to the point where he finds iroh silly for respecting their status in the ecosystem whatsoever. he’s not unintelligent, he’s just ignorant due to his cultural upbringing. of course he has massive blindspots, he was fed fire nation propaganda his whole life, but he would never have risen through the ranks of the fire navy just through ozai’s favor alone.

furthermore, the idea that ozai’s reliance on the women in his family to do his dirty work (ursa killing azulon, azula capturing zuko & iroh and taking ba sing se) is a sign of weakness doesn’t actually hold water. if anything, ozai using women for his own ends and then discarding them once they are no longer useful to him demonstrates his strength as a patriarch.

additionally, the way he banishes zuko by giving him an impossible quest with the promise of return on its completion incentivizes zuko to remain loyal to his nation and his father, instead of simply banishing him with no hope of return, at which point zuko would have nothing to lose in attempting to usurp ozai, which is clearly an anxiety for ozai considering that zuko was banished for threatening treason in the first place. (and note that zuko only does resist ozai once he returns to the fire nation, something azula orchestrated without ozai’s approval. if zuko had stayed in ba sing se as a fugitive it is highly unlikely that he would have ever participated in the avatar’s revolution, but azula wanted her brother to come back home and found a way to make it so.)

ozai is very good at manipulating people, he is a very powerful firebender (think of the way he is able to summon lightning instantly, underground, moments after an eclipse is over, without any sort of warning), and he was very close to winning the war for good only six years into his reign. he is myopic, shallow, egotistical, and generally wrong about many things, but that doesn’t actually make him dumb.

i think he mostly seems dumb because when put next to azula (or iroh, or ursa), he is far less subtle in his intellect. azula is shrewd, calculating, clever, and far less image-obsessed than ozai is. she is completely willing to sublimate herself for the sake of serving her empire, whereas ozai is the empire and therefore must project absolute power at all times. zuko, especially in book 1, is far more like ozai than azula is, which is what makes azula such a threatening villain: the fact that she is a girl is crucial to her character. so many of her traits that make her so much more threatening than anyone else in positions of power throughout the show are directly born out of the fact that despite being raised on the same values, she was socialized differently.

her feminine behaviors and the expectations placed on her as a girl are what make so her anomalous among the myopic, egotistical, prideful, power-hungry fire nation military. she doesn’t care as much about projecting power, so she’s able to get rid of her fancy fleet and recruit mai and ty lee, she’s able to disguise herself to enter ba sing se instead of laying siege to it and successfully takes it over when iroh could not after nearly two years. she does not rely on brute force, but rather “feminine qualities” such as manipulation, calculation, and subterfuge. same goes for mai and ty lee, hence why they are also so powerful despite merely being two non-bending teenage girls. by not being forced into performing those restrictive masculine behaviors, she is able to beat the men at their own game.

similarly, ursa uses poison to kill azulon, an act she does for the benefit of the men in her family (ozai and zuko), through a traditionally feminine weapon. a fire nation man would never think to poison their enemy because that is not how men kill other men. but use a woman as a proxy, and this becomes a sufficiently masculine act through the way in which the man exerts his power over a woman.

iroh uses brute force and projection of power as his primary tactics before his reckoning (see his siege on ba sing se), and manipulation, scheming, disguise, and sublimation to achieve his ends only after he has unlearned fire nation propaganda and gained a broader perspective. sokka is similar in this regard, in that it takes him learning feminine strategies from women warriors (the kyoshi warriors technique is about using their opponents’ force against them) to understand that he needs to prioritize his intellect over brute force if he ever intends to win a single fight. zuko’s blue spirit persona demonstrates his capabilities for being smart in battle, but when he is not inhabiting the blue spirit (his mother’s values), he is channeling ozai, and thus loses fights due to his aggression and impulsivity, which is always used against him.

zuko’s growth involves him improving as a fighter when he sheds the fire nation model of masculinity that values blind rage and aggression, and instead embraces the feminine values of warmth, healing, gentleness, and understanding, which allows him to go toe to toe with azula as someone who has internalized feminine values by virtue of being born a girl: being calculating and precise instead of powerful, manipulative and scheming instead of blunt, and patient instead of impulsive. the final agni kai sees azula prioritizing sheer power as she suffers a nervous breakdown, which zuko and katara are able to use against her in a way that they otherwise could not since she is uniquely impulsive and reckless in this fight (although she is still able to strategize as shown when she points her lightning at katara instead of zuko).

the reason azula seems so much smarter than ozai is because she wasn’t raised to prioritize her own ego above everything else; no, she was raised as a girl, and this social disadvantage also proves to be her greatest strength. the reason iroh seems so much smarter than ozai is because he is willing to embrace multiple ideas about the world, instead of just one. to his credit, ozai is very good at implementing his idea; it’s just that said idea sucks. ozai isn’t dumb, he just has an incredibly limited perspective. he’s great at what he does, which is projecting power. but he has no reason to do anything else, so we really shouldn’t expect him to.

ozai isn’t stupid, he’s just wrong. and yes, there is a difference.

#analysis #hot takes #ozai #azula #zhao #iroh #zuko #wrote this whole thing in a frenzy last night after I saw someone call ozai a dumbass lmao #I mean he is a dumbass but he’s also way smarter and more powerful than I think we want to give him credit for #it’s not his fault his life’s single goal happens to seem very stupid to us #but yeah azulas entire character would simply not work if she wasn’t a girl lol like her gender is so integral to her character #and why every girl in avatar is a better fighter than the big strong powerful masculine men who fight using brute force #toph beats boulder. etc

[ioannemos]

the particular bad guy of this episode, a little apprehensively: the audience wants to see me die?

nate, with more sincerity than anything he's said to anyone in her presence before: like you wouldn't believe

#and he's not wrong #leverage #my favorite #tv shows #watching the stork job and the way that parker instantly goes 'we have to bail' after seeing the kids has me Feeling a Certain Way #bc i think it's partially like. i think she knows the feeling of 'the known sucks but at least it's the known' #how many times was she let down? was her hope that things would get better left to die? #i know she goes to save them all later but maybe at the time she was just thinking... 'don't give them false hope' #her insistent use of the phrase 'we can't save them' is just. augh. parker bb no #and eliot saying to sophie 'he's right' re nate's sticking to the plan of saving one vs trying to save all of them on the fly is smarter... #just ouch. reminds me of the fishing job where eliot's goal is 'GET HARDISON OUT' and the very clear reluctance with which he tells hardiso #'yeah. i have an idea what they're gonna do. it's gonna be bad. are people gonna die? probably' #bc he doesn't want that! he doesn't want to leave people in the lurch! but GET HARDISON OUT takes precedent for him #and he's doing the same thing here. GET LUKA OUT is taking precedent. he doesn't like it any more than sophie does #i just. ghenghnehganf. i have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about eliot's priorities and how they intersect with his job as the hitter #he's the physical guy. he has to be not just realistic he has to be the pessimist bc if he doesn't plan well enough? he friggin dies man #eliot's always thinking of 'what can a human being survive' bc AS THE HITTER that's HIS weakest point #GHENFGHENFGGHGHEWLAFHGGLRHGI #i have normal feelings of normal intensity about eliot spencer #and parker for that matter! very normal #eliot spencer #parker #you pierce my soul #personal #abbie needs a twitter

[roses-and-elixir]

Here are some things I’d like to do next year:

- no buy (only rebuying when i’ve completely run out)

- studying more (1-2 hours after work, a whole day during the weekend)

#personal #2024 #theyre my main two goals really #i want a more minimalist collection and i wanna get smarter #inshaAllah

[atopvisenyashill]

If you had the chance to change something about the dance of the dragons (TV show or book), what would it be? For example, how a character dies, which team a house is on,or an entire character personally. How would you change it to make the story better, in your opinion? 💙💚🖤♥️

JUST ONE THING. ANON U R A SADIST.

aksjdjd no okay thank you great ask. sorry if it’s a lil all over the place, i think obsessively about how i would adapt f&b and asoiaf if i was a millionaire lmao.

for the show it’s so easy (besides just giving it like ten more episodes to cook before getting to the Dance, I mean) - lean into the dueling protagonists of alicent & rhaenyra by giving them dueling deuteragonists in aegon ii and jacaerys. i realize this would completely reframe the whole show lmao, but we can even compromise and say once they do that ten year skip, the narrative should focus in on building up the two sides through the dueling protagonists alicent & rhaenyra, and dueling deuteragonists aegon & jace. it makes way more sense to have the character they most interact with be their sons & “heirs” and contrast those relationships & all the politics that exist in how they act as mothers towards their sons. rather than focus in on daemon as the second main character for rhaenyra and…this weird fucking musical chairs male protagonist with the greens they’re doing. it doesn’t fix everything but i think shifting the focus from rhaenyra’s marriages to her as a mother and queen regnant, and from alicent’s conga line of abuses to again, an active role as a mother and queen consort/queen mother, as well as fleshing out the two men who are objectively thee most important men in their lives (argue with the wall jace & aegon haters!!!!). explaining why jace & aegon developed into the sort of men they are through how they exist in the most important relationship in their lives, literally until the day they both die. (and if you’re curious, daemon’s counterpart is aemond, they get to be number three for both their sides. viserys isn’t on a “team” but he does have a counterpart and it’s QOREN).

i think the way they did it in the show really does a disservice to the potential of aegon and especially jacaerys as characters, as well as downplaying the importance of a lot of critical relationships like rhaewin, laenyra, criston’s entire demented relationship with both women, rhaenys’ relationship with laena & rhaenyra, alicent’s whole ass relationship with her kids, AND rhaenyra’s whole ass relationship with her kids. imo they go for this kind of half in half out “we want to appeal to the insane targ stans who genuinely believe incest will save westeros” and “we want to write a story about the complexities of motherhood & sexuality in a patriarchal society” and wound up in a weird place where daemon & alicent are both bisexual but only in deleted scenes and completely drop rhaenyra’s gender fuckery the moment she’s played by an actually non-binary actor and also completely bury the other non-binary actor (rhaena’s actor, phoebe campbell) by giving their character like two fucking lines and no depth.

also better wigs jesus FUCKING christ hbo i know you have the budget!!

for the books….a lot of the problem with the dance is that f&b is so antithetical to how george writes. it’s effectively a very long and detailed outline of a plot and george doesn’t write exclusively by outline. as he says himself, he gardens - he writes and he sees where the writing takes him. if he had actually sat down and written out the dance as a series of short stories the way he does with dunk & egg, i think the plot would not only be massively different it would also be leaps and bounds better. what i want to change is to make george actually WRITE the dance and not just outline and call it a day!!!!

BUT. Okay if I can change ONE thing. fuck that’s hard.

I’d make Larys’ motivation more clear, and when i say more clear i mean my theory is that Larys just straight up hated the Targaryens and Velaryons bc he believed one of them killed Harwin, and decided to get revenge by completely fucking over the whole family tree. i get why people like his show version (I like parts of him a lot too and the actor has some galaxy brained takes!!!) but i think while Larys is well done, his character adaption & the way he’s completely unknowable in the series itself is just a rehash of Tyrion. We already have a disabled younger brother who hates his older brother for being condescending in his love & conditional acceptance, and hates his father for being a patriarchal monster, and is a sexually abusive menace to teenage girls, and I don’t think they are saying anything new or groundbreaking with Larys in the show or book. He is just there to be the evil crippled henchman, and then die.

No, what I want is a true chaos agent to rival Littlefucker, a man who becomes obsessively and uncomfortably devoted to Harwin, the only person in his entire life who ever treated him with any love or respect or care, who launches this bloody, demented quest to completely wipe out every Valyrian left alive for the misuse and murder of his brother. Willing to help kill his own nephews. Willing to burn the kingdom to the ground. Willing to destroy his own house if it means Harwin will be avenged, if it means the dragons die. All leading to Larys getting his Pyrrhic victory and choosing to die because he feels he has nothing left.

Why the extreme change? I think it fits better with a lot of the themes in F&B and the dance in particular - not just family, and “the things we do for love” but the legacy of Valyria, of the Targaryens and the dragons, the clash and growing pains of this group of interlinked cultures learning to tolerate each other’s existence on the same continent, and of course, what being told every day of your life that you’re a monster does to how you view yourself. You can keep all the rest of his weird behavior from the show and the books even - the sexual abuse of Alicent being Larys unable to stop himself from turning into the same sort of awful man his father was; of him switching sides without a care or without any seeming sense in the books, always ready to be the devil on a shoulder to Viserys, Aegon, Alicent, and Corlys - but a little bit here and there to let us know that Larys genuinely loved Harwin until the bitter end. We already have several stories about a brother who grows to resent another and lets the resentment fester until he’s willing to cross a line you can’t come back from and murder his brother for a perceived sleight. I think Larys & the dance as a whole benefit from him being a brother who romanticizes and saintifies Harwin (but not lyonel!) so much that he weaponizes his years of resentment & turns it against the entire world and damn the consequences. I think he fits in much more with Rhaenyra, Alicent, Corlys, Viserys, Daemon, and Rhaenys that way and steps away from being Tyrion but slightly to the left and into his own type of character instead.

#if i can get a buy one get one i want to reimagine mysaria as well bc like larys she’s just a rehash of varys but worse. #hotd critical #asks #anons #you can even KEEP the clumsy angry protectiveness of harwin in the show or the relative distance in their narratives in the books #bc the point is that larys romanticizes this relationship bc it is the only thing that resembles love he has ever experienced. #how harwin acts doesn’t matter; what matters is that larys turns him into a shining example of the warrior and father in his mind & losing #this touchstone breaks him open just like rhaenyra alicent viserys etc all break at their own losses. it’s just that larys is smarter and #plays the game better and actually accomplished his goal before he let the war eat him alive! #damn i should add house strong to my list of blorbo houses aksjdjd

[meezer]

ESSAY SUBMITTED. LET'S GET A BAD GRADE TOGETHER 🫴

#if they will thwart my attempts at doing well. then so be it. my current goal is to see how far I can ride this. how BAD and LAZY I can be #till they have enough and kick me out of university. I'm just joking. but seriously. if you hate my performance so much do something about #it. if I'm such a bad student then punish me. pussy. I'm smarter than you'll ever be #<- exorcising some demons vis a vis my hatred for my mean gay professor please look away

[sudaca-swag]

"im an ex gifted child" no youre dumb just say it how it is, i was intelligent when i was 5 and im still intelligent now that im 22 and ill still be smart as fuck when im 40 and 90 years old <3

#and its simply bc i truly enjoy researching studying comparing my world view with others etc etc #but if u dont put it to work dont just sit back and cry that u arent smart like when u were a kid youre lazy and complacent #also everyones obviously smarter in some areas than others nobody is an all rounder genius ffs #find your passion and pursue it be curious be open minded and work towards your goals

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Me, aged 5. Spoken to my extremely Catholic grandmother, matriarch of the family, who had crosses and pictures of saints hanging in every room of the house: [little, uncannily-enunciated voice] “Grandma, when your church gets destroyed in Armageddon, you can come to our kingdom hall!”

#exjw #ex cult #I’m overly-conscious of how I speak now; but as a child I was about as blunt as a sledgehammer #Yeah my dad got SLAMMED for that one #There was no mistaking what I said because I spoke like a little adult #I was… something. Cute but weird and kind of manipulative. #At that age I enjoyed creeping out adult men in public by intensely staring at them #only adult men; not women #I also pushed boys down the slide and called them “scaredy-cat” until they agreed with me that they were cowards #I planned out in my head one time that my dad was going to walk into the living room with coffee in his hand #so if I scared him at just the right moment; he’d jolt and coffee would spill all over the floor #So I tested my hypothesis and it worked. #My goal was to get him to spill the coffee #I was around four or five but with the calculation of a serial killer (which isn’t saying much because serial killers are dumb) #I watched ET and wanted to see if I could hide in plain sight in my basket of stuffed animals #So I just waited in there very patiently until my dad went looking for me. Held my eyes open without blinking and remained very still #He walked in… looked right at me but didn’t see me; walked out. Walked back in #This time he saw me and got the crap scared out of him when he realized I was right there in front of him the whole time #But I never went into anything to prank anyone… I wasn’t in it for humor; I wanted to be smarter and more powerful than people #if only for a second #I wanted to see if I could come up with a plan involving other people and have those people do what I wanted them to do #But you see I was so sweet 90% of the time that no one thought anything of it — or even noticed what I was doing in some cases #Fortunately I grew out of doing that kind of thing without sufficient cause #But I still do enjoy messing with people from time to time if they REALLY deserve it #or benignly… I like it when people cry or get squeamish in reaction to my artistic work or acting or singing #The feeling of someone eating out of the palm of my hand creatively is great #Love it

[skunkes]

I just explained in da tags of that ask that i cant really Feel anything right now because of all the big negative feelings im still carrying, and also because im still convinced that 1. This is my one win of 2023 and no other good things can happen anymore bc ive used up all my luck 2. I feel i always get punished when good things finally happen to me anyway

But im trying to be excited...i will eventually finally potentially be able to reconnect with old friends that ive been interested in seeing, but not if i didnt have my own transportation in case things went south and i needed to leave...

I'll eventually be able to drive up to see college friends I've had to convince not to come down to visit me because there is literally nothing here in my city to do except walk around Target lol...or even visit my best friend 2 hrs away...

i can leave the house to drive in my car and cry in it if i feel like crying during the day instead of having to wait until everyone falls asleep...i can finally have a small space to myself, alone, for just a little bit...I can sing to my music in there without anyone hearing me other than any unlucky persons who end up next to me at a red light...yippeeeeee....

#talkys #im also having trouble because well #all my friends were smarter than me and theyre all headed for careers #or stable jobs...and i dont really have anything but this car rn #and i dont think i ever will...! #my goal had been Get Car for years...idk what comes after that or if anything does #i dont really have Anything #idk how ill move out bc i dont have anything i cld do for a job to afford it and not Die #its really hard. to imagine a future. especially Now...it was much easier to dream a little bit ago... #but whatever...i have a car now...thats all i wanted and all i can ask for and we'll see what does or doesnt happen to me... #🧿🧿🧿

[baishouqijia]

i'm really normal about genshin

it's almost automated. after farming, i put my figures in and the statuses/colours will update based on the value and the dailies will tick down based on how many days until the banner.

the calculator is kinda hacky but it takes my guarantee into account on the 5* count and updates the "chance of 5*" and "wishes" based on whether or not there's enough for a full wish cycle. the shop is a drop down so that auto updates based on how many i intend to buy. the artifacts auto-populate the list, i wish it did the stats too but i'd need a data set and i cba right now :')

#✧ : filed. admin. #cringe i spent all night on this #i want to do more with the visuals but it was REALLY ugly before (sorry finch u have the old version) so this is an improvement #i also wanna automate more of it to practice excel but its late u_u #mayhaps tomorrow #stretch goals are making the calculator smarter and the artifacts auto populate with main stats based on what i pick #also adjusting the values based on the level? #but yea i know paimon.moe exists i just like excel : D

[spacecoffeeandcartoons]

oop its uni ranking time again

the time of the year when I remember that since age 14 ive basically spent my life in educational institutions that have been at some point ranked #1 on some of these lists. ugh. bleh. nothing intelligent to say just now, I just always need to remember the ways this limits or biases my experience in addition to the ways it broadens it. someday I will finally write the big article that's been brewing in my brain about the meritocracy fallacy.

#if you ever wonder where my impostor syndrome comes from this explains it #since I was 14 I have been surrounded by people smarter than me #its a real mixed bag bc it means I know that some of these people really are geniuses but also I know how rigged the system is #and how not smart some of them can be #this isn't gonna make any sense #sorry #if I get personal about it for a second its kind of nuts this has happened #bc this has never at any point been my goal #im not an elite institution chaser #for HS it happened to be near where I lived and I applied on a whim #and went with a well lets see! attitude #for uni it was the dream school of the girl who sat in front of me on the bus #and I googled it and it sounded neat and I toured it and liked the vibe #for grad school they had a scholarship avail that seemed tailor made for me I didn't care what school it was at #how has this happened #its almost funny #coming to Tumblr once again bc it feels safer to shout into the void here

[iwasbored777]

Don't say I'm biased against Feligami because I'm a hardcore Felila shipper cuz I ship Chloélila too or whatever their ship name could be idk (I'm bad at ship names I couldn't even think of Ikarimoth myself I take no credit for that ship name) they just work but Feligami doesn't cuz it's out of character that's why I don't like it and also it gets creepier the more I think about it

#Feligami is the opposite of why I started shipping Felila #Cuz Felila brings out the worst in each other as a good villain couple should #But Félix has a villain origin story too good for him to drop it for a chick and also it makes no sense if he does #Also Kagami simping for a boy who looks exactly like Adrien and is mice to her like Adrien was is creepy as fuk cuz he's her ex #And she apparently moved on and now she's like oh look his clone is here how hot #Imagine how fuked up this is when even Chloé doesn't like Félix despite him being Adrien's copy #And Félix is not himself here he is so weird #But Lila is completely herself with Chloé she's the only person who befriended Lila for who she is #And they just want to torture Marinette at least they have a common goal #But Lila is much smarter and she and Félix are literally the same person #That's why I ship them together but yeah Chloélila is good too at least it's in character and they're funny #miraculous ladybug #Feligami salt #Felila #Chloélila #I meant nice in that tag not mice 😅

[maretriarch]

ive said it before but there's literally no reason for fitbit to not have a shitty pokemon go rip off game....if you want to attract the sluggish millennial class you need to market towards them. you could upsell on patterned bands and if you're really desperate and need that Funko Pop money make little charms for the band like a charm bracelet and do like, some skylanders shit.

#little exercise themed monsters like a dumbbell and arms with a face like geodude #make a multiplayer cooking game where everyone has to get different step/hr zones/miles goals for different ingredients #all of this is off the dome it is so easy #rip off farmville for all thise mommy running groups that already exist #cookie RUN #preferably it wouldn't be actually exercise themed it would be it's own cool fun thing #which not only suits my personal tastes but is smarter bcs someone whos not into uh moving may start bcs of Cool Fanart

[dropespeon]

kaito would disguise his doves as other kinds of birds and have them infiltrate bird flocks to steal food as their own little heists

#drop #magic kaito #the smarter birds (like corvids) start catching on and pretty much form their own equivalent of the kid task force #they start to recognize the doves' tricks and make it their life's goal to catch and stop them #and so kaito starts training his doves to do increasingly elaborate heists #it's an entire bird turf war and he's invested

[marsgoals]

You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think - Christopher Robin

#christopher robin #braveheart #brave new world #believe #strong #stronger #smarter #think #thinking #quotes #mars goals #true words #quoteoftheday

[jattendschaton]

I think there is a difference between venting a frustration on your blog to purge the feeling and venting a frustration on your blog because you are actively trying to change the way other people create content and there isn’t something inherently wrong with either of them, but pretending you are doing the former when you’re actually doing the latter is an odd choice for blorbo playtime

#bean talks #to be clear this is not about anything in particular #it just comes up every few months and it always makes me feel odd #like the idea that you know your blorbos better than anyone else is very common and normal #and yeah lol we all do it im not trying to say it's bad #but it *is* interesting to me when people assume they are smarter/better than everyone else and therefore #other people should change their own stuff to reflect theirs...is odd ? or just pretentious i guess ? #idk i just find it weird how often people want to say 'im just venting on my own blog' #when clearly the goal isnt to vent but to change how other people write/draw/create/think/whatever #just interesting to use the veneer of expressing complicated emotions when it's really #'i dont like how other people do this and i want them to change'

[captainswan618]

So the idea of the paperclip maximizer fits especially well for Gnosis, huh?

#I mean not only does it fit the spirit - #taking its goal (get smarter) to an unexpected extreme to the point of diverting resources from others - #but. yknow. clippy #dimension 20 #a starstruck odyssey #gnosis #captainswan618 talks too much #it was always queue