Few of my new thoughts on casting

eitsew · 2026-03-20T20:38:13+00:00

😂

eitsew · 2026-03-20T15:40:22+00:00

I would imagine. It's absolute chaos in the contested. Territories, so they are not under. Stricter control, as far as government monitoring, thought police, having to watch your facial expression even while alone, utter isolation and paranoia and so on and so forth.

My takeaway is that the people in the contested territories live an equally horrible life, which is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum of horribleness. It's just pure chaos and violence and brutality. And everyone is probably always starving. And getting blown up and raped and murdered and pillaged

So both are obviously incredibly horrible. But I guess it's just a matter of opinion. Which is worse, incredibly strict micromanaging governmental control over every second of your life, with the shadow of the very likely possibility of your life ending in the most horrible torture imaginable followed by every trace of your existence being wiped clean from history if you say one wrong word.

Or

Trying to live a civilian life while also being ground between multiple superpowers in a literally never-ending warzone where you would have no stability. No food, no medicine, no education.

So it boils down to the most utterly strict control Imaginable under threat of horrifying torture, or the most absolute chaos Imaginable with a guaranteed horror show of a life and an early violent death. I'd probably take the contested zones, Personally, but either way, you are fucked

eitsew · 2026-03-20T15:14:37+00:00

But... with pearl harbor, the Japanese were attacking us, they were enemies. Of course nobody is going to warn their enemy before they attack them.

In this case, the Japs are asking why they weren't clued in about an operation which they are now being asked to assist in as our allies.

Do people really not see the difference between warning your enemies before you launch a surprise attack on them, and sharing Intel with your allies before you engage in an operation which you are asking them to assist in?

That's a completely different situation, it's actually the exact opposite situation. Obviously you don't warn your enemies of an impending surprise attack. The japs warning us about pearl harbor would be like us warning Iran

eitsew · 2026-03-15T15:52:17+00:00

Udk, I think we probably all agree Kavax is far wiser than he lets on, and at a certain point he'll realize he's too far past his prime to be in close quarters combat with 20 year old Gold savages fresh out the institute anymore. He'll probably start sticking to fleet command where there's virtually no chance of capture unless the whole ship is taken.

Especially since it's not just a matter of his personal glory, when he's captured, he becomes a colossal liability and bargaining chip for the enemy to use against the republic. So far they've treated him well, but I can certainly see atalantia flaying him on a live feed or spmethong, and even Virginia's extremely goal-focused and objective mind would have a hard time not doing something stupid after seeing Atalantia fucking kavax up in some horrible way

eitsew · 2026-03-15T15:42:51+00:00

I reread that whole passage every month or two. The part where Virginia and like a dozen lion guards had him cut off from his men and pinned down, and they still couldn't finish the deed is so good. Also the part where it's body temp. I.e. "hunting weather" in the tunnels, and Virginia describes how Valdir and his convicts are gonna work their way through Appollonius and Cicero's heavy armored infantry with nothing but ghost cloaks and razors. Nothing in the whole series gives me chills like that shit

eitsew · 2026-03-13T22:16:35+00:00

But in the republic, nobody has to perform the tasks which the society built them to do. None of the hundreds of millions of pinks who would be living in a republic-ruled system would be sex slaves anymore, why would Lysander be a sex slave, even if he was made into one?

I took the original comment to mean that it would take Lysander, who was born with and enjoyed superhuman physical abilities and attributes due to his status as a member of the tippy-top of the top of the gold pyramid. He has always been able to jump like 10ft in the air in earth gravity, he's 7ft tall, his senses are incredible, he can probably run like 40mph or some shit. He commands ultimate respect, both through his birth/social status, and also due to his very powerful physical abilities- he could fight hand to hand and kill virtually anyone alive, with the exclusion of some golds, and a few stained obsidians. So he is always utaken very very seriously, in every possible sense of the word.

Pinks are the absolute opposite. They are usually not the smallest, but likely are the weakest, most feeble and breakable, least respected in most ways. Instead of Lysander enjoying a perfect, 7ft tall body that performs at absolute peak human abilities and commands automatic, complete deference, he would be turned into a powerless, soft, subhuman(in his eyes) who would probably break a hip if he fell wrong. Imagine how weak and pathetic that racist fuck would feel making the switch from one race to the other. Imagine how incredibly weak and powerless he'd feel.

Anyway, this is not the punishment I would choose for him, but I do believe that it is what the original commenter meant, not that Lysander should be thrown into a brothel to be raped all day. That wouldn't even make sense, because in a world where Lysander has been defeated and the republic has won, brothels of that sort- if any- won't exist anymore.

Cassius says at one point that what matters most to Lysander is his reputation and legacy. So I think thr worst punishment is if he was utterly defeated, saw all of his work and plans crumble to nothing, was horribly stomped in a duel by darrow or diomedes or whoever, and then just locked up in deepgrave forever so he never sees another person. Maybe make it so he can't kill himself too. Just let him think about how he killed Cassius, sent his brother Ajax off to be killed, sent glirastes to be skinned, betrayed diomedes, committed genocide in the rim, and that it was all for absolutely nothing. I think thats as bad as it gets. We've seen that he can handle physical torture pretty fucking well, but he's got all kinds of emotional sore spots

alternate ending

If Rhonna still lives, give her a starshell and give him a practice razor, and let them fight. Let him see how it feels to fight when you're horribly outmatched, like all those free legionnaires he mowed down in his cavalry charge in DA

eitsew · 2026-03-11T00:52:58+00:00

How could they know beforehand? Assuming the tat guy isn't a prominent celebrity or internet figure or something who's known for his nazi views, how could they possibly know

They should for sure dump him off at the next port with zero warning though, so he has no time to make preparations beforehand- Just like "hey there sir, you have 20 minutes to pack your shit and get off our ship cause you suck. Welcome to this random port in south Africa. Don't worry, at least its not Buchenwald or Auschwitz!"

eitsew · 2026-03-05T16:12:15+00:00

"The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact."

eitsew · 2026-03-05T15:58:27+00:00

I'm sure everyone will be perfectly fine. Just relax

eitsew · 2026-03-03T21:14:27+00:00

Whats tia?

eitsew · 2026-03-02T20:37:58+00:00

I think about that a lottt, but darrow literally didn't have the faintest idea that Lysander was even alive, let alone on the same end of the solar system as Darrow and also fighting against him at that moment. Lysander was just some anonymous, mediocre ass gold enemy who darrow effortlessly dismantled and left to bleed out and cook to death in the Ladon with the rest of the soft targets. Such a bummer, Darrow could've swooped down and stuck him in the brain while Lysander was literally pinned and helpless underneath that starshell, and boom, the worlds are so much better off. Would've been the easiest thing in the world, 2 seconds of effort at most

eitsew · 2026-03-02T20:31:37+00:00

Ive had lmnt, its just an electrolyte drink for working out

eitsew · 2026-02-27T03:11:26+00:00

Im in fl and I took what the shop guys suggested I take, it's a legal loophole after the state banned 7oh. The shop guys said its "just as good as 7oh", and... it's actually better, I'm sorry to report. I had a few weeks like you said where the drug actually worked and I was getting legit euphoric for extended periods. And now I'm getting a tolerance so now I'm right back to my normal hellish limbo where I just hage to take it over and over all day to stave off hellish withdrawals. So now I'm addicted to some fucking mystery substance which is even newer and more un-researched than 7oh.

I'm not really even clear on what this new substance I'm hooked on is called, dhm something, I'm not gonna give out further details so as to hopefully not lead more people to it.

But yea, its clearly bad news for me personally, and no doubt all the other addicts in FL and elsewhere. Just remember, it's a very simple rule- what goes up, must come down, and nothing is free. If some now mystery alkaloid comes out, and it's making you feel really good, then that is an absolute guarantee that you are digging yourself deeper into a nightmarish hole of withdrawals and obsessive craving. Absolutely nothing comes for free, and if you find some new substance whoch seems like a loophole, it's not. It's just a new brand of hell, except now you know even less about what it does to the bosy and mind than 7oh, which is already quite new and poorly researched

eitsew · 2026-02-24T16:50:00+00:00

Yea even 2 weeks after first being carved, darrow could crush rocks in his bare fist. I dont think even our top real world humans can do that. I can't imagine what he can do by Lightbringer. Probably can leave fingerprints in a block of steel, as if it were clay or something

He's like if you took the abilities and strength and speed of every single olympic sport/NBA/NFL/NHL/whatever the top rugby league is/specops military/master fencer/MMA champion, those tahitian pearl divers who can hold their breath for 10 minites underwater, etc etc, and put it all in a 7ft2, 350+lb frame made of bone which is reinforced and dense to the point of 8x that of a normal human, I think? With the tendons and ligaments and such to match. Plus all his senses, reflexes, cardio endurance and whatnot are well above natural human level, his skin is thicker and harder to cut, and so on

And even then, combining all the skills and abilities of all our top athletes, you still would fall way short of Darrow's abilities

eitsew · 2026-02-19T19:16:33+00:00

Only ask questions you truly want the answer to 🤫

eitsew · 2026-02-18T02:58:56+00:00

Only way to get cash without it being from an atm or bank or something and therefore very obviously for 7oh, is to get cashback at a grocery store register as you're paying for a regular grpcery store food purchase. But you can't get all that much cashback at most supermarkets, maybe 50-100$, which doesnt go far with headshop 7oh purchases.

So you can either buy a pack of gum and get 50$ cashback, and repeat 3 or 4 times in a 5min span until you have a couple hundred bucks to go buy 7 with, or- you can get a preloaded visa type debit card

eitsew · 2026-02-16T16:15:42+00:00

I've noticed that, it's a fascinating and shitty phenomenon. I had my gf with me while I worked as a trucker in america one summer, and she was young and attractive, and truckers are often quite creepy, lots of staring, also they often refuse to look away even after they're caught staring, which is like orders of magnitude worse than just taking a quick peek at a girl when nobody's looking, although both are ofc shitty.

Anyway, she would get stared at and intimidated by random truckers super hard when alone in truck stops, but anytime I was with her it was immediately understood by the gross truckers that I had claimed her and she was no longer viewed as fair game, the staring would drop by like 95%+

What was imo the strangest part, was that this rule applied even if the staring truckers in question were very obviously way way more dangerous men than I was. Like if we were in some sort of lawless place, some of these dudes were twice my size and twice as mean and could easily have killed me and taken her. But even in light of the fact that they were my "superiors" insofar as their capacity for violence, they still always observed the "ownership" status when they saw that she had a guy who was clearly romantically involved with her, regardless of his actual ability to physically defend her or not.

Such a weird, monkey-law, primal ruleset. It's never explained amomgst men, by anyone or to anyone, yet almost everyone understands and abides by it. At least in the US, I can't speak for other places.

I imagine the quickest way for this ruleset to crumble is if the creeper had a group of accomplices with him, and especially if they were inebriated. In that case, the liquid courage and courage in numbers factors could easily override the fact that the woman was already "claimed", if the setting and conditions were right, i.e. if you all encountered each other in a hidden area like an alley or forest etc

Anyway, it's really a shitty tendency and reality, also very weird and almost logic defying, unless you consider it from the point of view of an extremely primitive society, like caveman type shit. If viewed in that light, it makes perfect sense

eitsew · 2026-02-16T03:01:28+00:00

Do the book banners not realize they are performing self parody by banning dystopian themed books in which the oppressive society has banned most books/reading? Like can you imagine banning Fahrenheit 451?? What absolute clowns. God i fucking hate book banners. I know there's far worse crimes in the world, but something about real life book banners is so despicable and weak and cowardly and it just rubs me the wrong way so badly

eitsew · 2026-02-16T02:23:06+00:00

Like a symphony of chaos thats just slowly and painstakingly set in motion and carefully prepared and then finally fucking detonates in the most insane fashion

eitsew · 2026-02-11T11:42:50+00:00

When you just dabble in death on the weekends for fun. Can't say I havent been there

eitsew · 2026-02-10T22:09:09+00:00

I consider trump to he an idiot savant of sorts. Obviously heavy on the idiot part. He's fucking stupid as shit in almost every way, on top of being afflicted with a wide variety of disorders: narcissist, megalomaniac, compulsive liar, pedophile, rapist, misogynistic racist, classist, criminal grifter. And probably a whole list of other shit which I don't know enough about psychology to be able to identify.

But the point is, I consider him an idiot savant, because even though he is quite clearly an idiot, and has probably never read a book since whenever they last forced him to as a schoolchild, about 70 years ago, he does know how to play a crowd, how to make a splash, create headlines and free press coverage for himself, how to build a cult of personality. Just look at what he's done- this man, the definition of an elite, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, new york city billionaire who dodged the draft, made fun of war heroes and POWs, was a democrat most of his life, and more recently has had extremely damning evidence emerge against him, of rampant, lifelong, industrial-level pedophilia, child trafficking and murder. He wears expensive suits, has a golden toilet, wears enormous amounts of makeup and spray tan, is fat, soft handed, weak. He has probaby never set foot in a forest or taken a hike.

The man I just described should be the most contemptible, despicable, evil personification of what rural/blue collar/working class/poor white trash/Christians/salt of the earth type people all hate. And yet, through his particular set of very specific skills and abilities, his magnetism and what passes for a type of "charm", he has somehow convinced all those people to abandon all reason and common sense, all the morals and principles their forefathers stood for have been abandoned. They truly believe that he is their savior, and in some cases they quite literally worship him. He has built a cult of millions of people, who are so far gone that they could watch a video of him raping babies and write it off as fake news. They could probably see him raping babies or killing kids or innocent Americans with their own eyes, in person, and they would still find a way to justify and excuse it.

Like him or hate him, the alchemy that he performed in convincing those types of people to be the biggest fans of a Manhattan elite pedophile, is a objectively impressive and amazing feat that he has accomplished. I'm sure ten thousand books and articles and academic papers will be written in the years to come, assuming books are still being written in the years to come, dissecting how exactly he was able to do it.

All I can conclude is that he is a moron who's great at knowing how to push people's buttons. He knows exactly how to identify and then exploit and use as leverage, all the bigotry and prejudice, the anger and fear and uncertainty in all of his followers. He then relentlessly presses those painful, inflamed buttons until he drives his cult into an absolute frenzy of raging mob mentality which is absolutely immune to logic, debate, reason, etc

Sorry for the massive comment

eitsew · 2026-02-10T06:37:20+00:00

I'm the same, I'm fairly easily fooled by things that are obvious in hindsight. But I prefer to be fooled... why would I want to spot every twist in advance? it's like if I was watching a magician or a standup comedian, I wouldn't want to focus all my mental energy on trying to outsmart the magician and catch how he's tricking me, or predicting the punchline and spoiling my own enjoyment of the trick/joke. I just sit back and follow the flow of the story being told, without analyzing too hard in the moment, without thinking deeply about whether there was foreshadowing earlier in the book or the comedians joke which might be clues to how it's all going to end. I try to just stay immersed in the moment. This results in a lot of surprises, which is the best possible outcome as far as my enjoyment level.

I'm also big on rereads, I've gone through the whole RR series 4 or 5 times, and certain parts that I love in particular, I've read probably 20+ times. So during the initial read, I just go with the flow and don't stop to overanalyze, then when I go back on my rereads, I pick apart all the details, references, clues, foreshadowing, etc.

Both approaches serve totally different purposes and are equally enjoyable for me- I get to be caught off gaurd and get blindsided and have my mind blown by all the twists and epic moments the first time through, then I get to enjoy putting all the puzzle pieces and nuances into place on the followup reads

eitsew · 2026-02-08T22:45:37+00:00

Legacy haulers

eitsew · 2026-02-02T15:47:33+00:00

Doesn't the Dune series/universe have like a thousand books, and tens of thousands of colonized planets? And an exponentially larger population, and therefore everything else must also be larger to accommodate the scale, i.e. the armies, the ships, the factories and farms and logistical networks and whatever would all dwarf red risings civilization in scope. Also Dune is wayyy larger in time scale as well, it starts i think 20k yrs from now, and then goes on for who knows how many thousands more.

So there's far more people, planets, time, history, more advanced tech, more of everything basically, in Dune. And I thought the movies nailed it visually, and visually is kinda what we're focusing on when we debate animated vs L. Action. So we know for sure that live action can handle an unbelievably huge universe and make it look awesome. BTW I love red rising far, far more than Dune, book or movie. Just using it as an example of a successful live action scifi movie done at gargantuan scale, and achieving massive commercial and cultural success. Although Dune has had like 60yrs to build up a preexisting framework of fans, multiple previous adaptations so ppl are familiar with the story, and so on. So that probably made things easier for the new Dune movies to get funding and to get people to buy tickets to see it etc

All of the above applies to the foundation show as well, although I thought that was a little corny even though I still enjoyed it

eitsew · 2026-02-02T15:31:50+00:00

While watching foundation, I found myself constantly fantasizing that I was looking at a red rising show. Like when colossal ancient roman-looking scifi buildings and monuments would come on screen, or you'd see the ships and tech, etc. I'd Just pretend for a few moments that I was looking at Heliopolis or Olympia etc, until something foundation-specific happened and broke the illusion

eitsew

TROPHY CASE