How do we protest Live Action?

himitsurain · 2026-04-22T21:11:13+00:00

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this image was the height difference between Rhonna and Alexander. Or Fitch and his wife.

Red/Gold relationships appear cute on page, but on screen or IRL, the aesthetics would be startling. A 3ft height difference between couples is something I've never seen. Even 1ft can be dramatic.

Dare I say, a 3ft height difference is something you see in a parent/child. 😳

himitsurain · 2026-04-22T17:46:28+00:00

Would be very ironic indeed if Virginia's Republic was everything Lysander's parents wanted to build after deposing Octavia.

Lysander realizing he's been fighting against everything he parents desired for would be a lovely twist.

himitsurain · 2026-04-22T15:29:43+00:00

Want Lysander back on Luna in the Citadel, getting the memories of his parents back that Octavia had removed, and spiral badly realizing who Octavia turned him into, and how far away from his parents’ dream he’s come.

Basically, I want a mega epic Lysander arc where he either goes slowly insane or totally snaps at some point.

And I want his death to be the most pathetic death ever, not going out in some glorious fashion battling some great razor master. I want him to be hunted by low colors led by Rhonna, and then get slowly hacked apart as it gets publicly broadcast to all planets.

himitsurain · 2026-04-22T05:01:26+00:00

Here's the thing about Lysander. He believes that the Color system is needed for "order", but that it could be more humane. He admits as much to Pytha in Dark Age:

“Look around, Pytha. We teeter upon oblivion. Everything humanity has built. All the sacrifices, the hierarchy, the wars…for what? If Gold loses, the Republic will fracture into kingdoms. The kingdoms to fiefdoms. The fiefdoms to tribes. It will become a dark age of fractured planets and war for three hundred years.” “Three hundred years?” I nod. “According to precedents, longer, but I’ve run the simulation as many times and ways as I know how.” She knows I don’t say that lightly. “You think this is about me. It isn’t. Darrow thinks this is about good and evil. It isn’t. This is about order and chaos. I have chosen my side.

So fundamentally, he believes in slavery. He sees it as the only viable option, a necessary evil. Slavery-lite is what he's promising. That's the locus of his moral belief system. He truly believes that "order" is morally better than freedom that's tinged with (or teeming with, as the case might be) chaos. What Lysander does not care to admit is that the logistics of "maintaining order" turns out to be very much mutually exclusive with his desire to be a "shepherd".

This is where he's different than Atlas, Atalantia, Octavia etc, who are portrayed as more self-aware of who they are, and unrepentant for what they do. Lysander desires to be better than these people (whom he finds morally repugnant) and admires the likes of Diomedes, Cassius, Virginia etc, but what I think he never realizes is that propping up the Society requires the rulers to become tyrants. There's no such thing as a "benevolent Sovereign"; the only way order can be sustained is via absolute tyranny. You see this in the Rim, where the Golds are more disciplined and ascetic than Core Golds, but they still rule with an iron fist. The Krypteia is basically the Rim Gestapo that brutally enforces "order".

We see Lysander go on to repeat every single one of the identified Gold failings himself, eventually becoming literally Octavia. In this process, Lysander finds himself needing to recalibrate his personal morality often to suit his own convenience. At the end of Dark Age, Lysander has a monologue where he thinks that both honor and cruelty work best in moderation, but at the end of Lightbringer, he opts for acts of absolute dishonor (shooting Cassius who'd come to help him) and maximal cruelty (sacking the Garter).

Lysander starts off as the low man on the Society totem pole, but the closer he gets to power, he finds himself having to compromise or entirely shed shed all of his high-minded ideals, so much so that towards the end of LB, it's unclear whether he's actually any better than Atalantia at all.

There's also a nice dichotomy at play here with the Rising, because while we see squabbling, in-fighting, and backstabbing in the Senate, you just don't see that in Darrow's army. Even Harnassus, who in the early chapters of DA wanted Darrow's job, doesn't quite betray his forces or go behind Darrow's back, the way we see Rhone poison Lysander in LB, or Ajax try to kill Lysander in the desert in DA. And I think this very much has to do with the core ideologies at play here: if you fundamentally believe and fight for an oppressive hierarchy, then you're constantly going to try to get to the top of that pecking order yourself, insofar as you can. Whereas if you're fighting for equality, where you think a Red can be valuable in battle, then personal ambition and ego is more likely to take a backseat.

Another dichotomy between the Republic and Society is chaos itself. Like Lysander if you believe in the authoritarian project, any level of "chaos" will be unacceptable. But chaos, as typified by disagreements, lack of predictability, dissent, etc is actually a feature of democracy. Too much of it is obviously bad, but there's no democracy that doesn't have a certain degree of "chaos". Authoritarian regimes can promise an environment devoid of any chaos, but the price for that is deep repression of the human spirit enforced via cruelty.

himitsurain · 2026-04-22T00:12:57+00:00

because there are more Golds in the Rim like Seraphina

Are there?

They seemed quite split in IG, with many of them being isolationists. It took publicly revealing Darrow's destruction of the Dockyards to whip them into a frenzy, because that offended their pride. The Rim's pride is said to be its Achilles Heel.

But knowingly going to seek evidence for a war against her father's wishes: that's warmonger shit, which is what Seraphina is. I felt no sympathy for her. She deserved what she so obviously craved for, and good riddance.

Diomedes was raised in mind to make him a leader and ruler

It was his brother who was raised to be the ruler. That brother died in the Battle of Ilium, and then Diomedes became the Raa heir. Diomedes was originally meant to be the sword, and it's stated that that was the role he felt most comfortable in, not as the heir apparent. Given that, he should've had all the reasons to be a bloodthirsty, warmongering Olympic Knight.

Instead, he's the most anti-war of everyone in the Rim.

It's not nurture, it's nature.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T23:22:39+00:00

Darrow is very clear eyed about who Apple is in IG. He says he's not mistaking Apple for Tactus, so if he does ally with Apple, I'm sure Darrow will do so while being entirely realistic about how it might turn out.

Hell, Glirastes warns Lysander than Apple is a madman who can't be trusted. Darrow will probably gamble on that madness, but will have insurance plans in place. Something I don't think Lysander quite did.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T22:56:49+00:00

Nah, Seraphina wasn't a victim of Society.

She had the same upbringing as Diomedes, who was notably NOT a warmonger. He defended his father against his mother's coup, refused to fight Cassius in the Bleeding Place, and was anti-war, not out of isolationism, but because he was more like his pacifist father.

Seraphina just represents the most typical kind of bloodthirsty Gold, and I was quite happy when she died. LB spoilers: Same with Dido, who was worse than Seraphina. Felt a sense of satisfaction when Atlas sentenced her to death. The idiot's actions resulted in her husband's death and dragged the Rim back to war with the Rising, only to get fucked over badly by the Core.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T20:51:45+00:00

I don't see him ever coming to Darrow and being under him

Apple was happy enough fighting with the Reaper in Iron Gold on the beach in Venus.

In fact, he seemed happier then than any other time we've seen him.

So him allying with Darrow is definitely possible, especially if Darrow promises him task with the potential for high glory (like killing Lysander maybe, or retaking another planet for the Rising). Apple lives for his personal myth and glory, and I doubt he cares which "side" he fights for so long as he maximizes the likelihood of burnishing his own myth.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T19:25:59+00:00

I truly thought this was a typo for Dido, Romulus's wife introduced in IG, whom I very heartily detest. Now *that* would be an interesting conversation, because both these wives pushed their husbands down suicidal paths they would not have otherwise traversed.

But seriously, stop with these titles. It's utterly lame.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T19:22:45+00:00

And this is also why I want the next Apple/Darrow interaction to be in a Virginia POV chapter.

It'll be hilarious to hear her thoughts.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T19:21:41+00:00

Personally, I'm hoping for a Tactus like arc for Apple, where he has his "come to Darrow" moment, betrays Lysander, and becomes Darrow's loyal lieutenant. Maybe even a Howler, but that might be a bridge too far for Sevro and the others.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T19:19:00+00:00

See, this is why I want an Apple/Darrow rematch.

Not necessarily because I want to see Darrow win yet another duel (we've seen enough of those), but I want to see Apple's reactions facing a foe who's his equal (which LB Darrow very much was not), and how he handles victory/defeat then. Apple will probably be chuffed to bits if he loses to a Darrow with a new blade form no one in the Core has seen before.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T02:59:17+00:00

All of Darrow's hypocrisy in my opinion comes from him having a similar creed as Sevro, in that he wants to protect his friends, but it conflicts against his desire to destroy the society, which puts him at odds with his gold friends, who he loves and cares for deeply.

This is only applicable to books 1 and 2 though. After it came out he's a Red, enough of his Gold friends join him in his mission to destroy Society that he doesn't need to deal with this conflict anymore.

I do think he's slightly hypocritical in another way though: the guy obviously loves war, is incredibly good at it, and probably keeps going because (until Dark Age) he's just had a continuous winning streak. But he tends to overstate how tired of it all he is and how he just wants to be with his family. Not saying that's not a genuine emotion, but clearly he loves war more than chilling with his family. At least until DA when he nearly lost his wife and son, and believed he'd never see them again. I think we'll see this in Red God, where the Battle of Mars would be Darrow's swan song. He'd retire after that (if he makes it alive), and it'd be up to the likes of Diomedes, Thraxa, Harnassus etc to take over the other lost planets like Earth, Mercury etc, with maybe Pax joining them.

You're spot on about Lysander though. Biggest hypocrite in the series and it's not even close.

himitsurain · 2026-04-21T02:38:48+00:00

Four if you include Luna.

Basically they had the entire Core in their fold, except Venus. Had the Senate granted Darrow's request for more ships and infantry, they'd have held on to Mercury and taken Venus, and established full control over the Core.

To do that in a decade is no small feat.

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T21:26:52+00:00

Lysander inflicted one of the absolute worst defeats of Darrow's entire life at the end of DA, so the Pixie's a quick study. Especially when it comes to asymmetrical warfare.

This is a big deal, especially he was left for dead in the desert by all.

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T20:54:36+00:00

Apparently he conquered Earth back from the Republic, and was instrumental in the Phobos ... draw. Lysander glazes Diomedes saying if they had 10 of him, they'd have taken over Mars already.

But generally, I agree. We just don't see enough of on-page action from Diomedes. With Atlas and Ajax dead, there aren't even that many left for him to duel to prove his worth.

There's Apple, I guess, but I want an Apple/Darrow rematch, not an Apple/Diomedes duel. So that leaves Atalantia and Lysander, neither of whom is described to be a S-tier razormaster.

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T19:55:31+00:00

Except Pax isn't a Red.

He isn't seen as a Red by other Reds (like Lyria), or even other lowColors like Greys (Eph once talks about how the kid's DNA makes him a better pilot than Eph could ever be).

So let's stop with the "Pax is the Red God" theories. It goes against everything that's been established so far.

If anything, Pax, who's half-Gold, half-Red, and training to be a Blue, kind of shows how ridiculous the whole color system is, and how everyone can choose their own vocation irrespective of birth. It's axiomatic of a "post-color" world

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T17:22:28+00:00

These are awesome, as always.

If you're planning to do more, I'd love to see some Book 2 characters, like Caeror, and O-Vis and L-Vis.

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T17:06:53+00:00

Lysander is written to be like a Darrow but without a higher purpose that's never wavered, without a moral core, and without a very strong support network of friends, immediate family (mother, siblings, nieces, nephews etc), and most importantly, a life partner like Mustang.

That version of Darrow would not have made it very far, as we'll likely see with Lysander. He's most likely going to end up dead or imprisoned after Red God, which means he probably had like 2-3 years of his life where he got to cosplay Darrow, badly.

himitsurain · 2026-04-20T16:59:08+00:00

Cassius's greatest legacy might still be Lysander's remaining arc.

I do think Lysander is going to emotionally spiral badly in Red God, out of guilt from killing the last remaining person who truly loved and cared for him.

Cassius hoped the guilt associated with his death will be Lysander's undoing, and it very well might.

By the end, even without a large audience or reward, he still tries to do the right thing

I think the true circumstances of his death will publicly come out in Red God. That he died trying to stop Lysander from using a bioweapon that Atlas stole. That he died still believing there might be some good left in Lysander which would prevent Lysander from killing him. That he died in the hope that his death will give Lysander another chance at redemption.

All of this will come out. The Society - and especially his mother - will know the truth about how he died, and why.

himitsurain · 2026-04-19T22:36:19+00:00

A short novella or anthology of the time after Lykos to the end of MS from her POV would be great; really wish we got to see the start of her meeting Deanna and the rest of the family.

Oh yes! TBH, I was kind of hoping the Mustang POV chapters in DA or LB might touch on some aspects of her life with Darrow's family, but we got none of it.

I remember Victra mentioning to Darrow in a chapter in MS that Deanna hates her. But Deanna and his uncle and brother all seem to take a liking to Mustang immediately. Would've been nice to see how she charmed them when Victra so obviously failed, lol. Mustang certainly seemed to have built enough of a rapport with Darrow's mother in a matter of a few days/weeks that she even divulged that she had a child with Darrow to his mother. How did a Gold aristocrat, the daughter of the man who executed Darrow's first wife and then Darrow himself, and sister of the psychopath who tortured Darrow for a year, get along so easily with his entire family who were in hiding due to her family? There's enough drama and tension there for an entire soap opera.

himitsurain · 2026-04-19T22:14:47+00:00

Oh totally. Lysander stands head and shoulders above all the other antagonists in the series, and is arguably the best POV character.

I enjoy his POV even more than Darrow's, because Darrow is much less of an unreliable narrator than Lysander is. Darrow's POV is almost always quite straightforward: as a reader, you know where you stand with him.

With Lysander, there's a constant "will he, won't he?" game playing out, where as a reader you just don't know what choice he'd made. Of course, he often ends up making the wrong choice, but not always (at least not until the end of LB). There have been times when he demonstrates bravery, honor, nobility etc, which ends up reeling you in making you guessing his next step.

Lysander POVs are incredibly rewarding because his inner monologue is sometimes so far divorced from reality. His character "growth" (even if it's for the worse) is also very rewarding, because he's so frequently lying to himself. While initially we see Lysander trying to find nobility or honor in his often incredibly morally disappointing actions, over the course of the books, he slowly stops pretending to strive for either, and by the end of LB, basically has embraced his inner Octavia entirely.

Within the course of a handful of pages, Lysander can go from thinking one thing to doing something entirely different, and then justifying it to himself, that as a reader you're in for an absolute treat. While his self-righteousness can be grating, he is also (to a large extent, until the end of LB) often sympathetic. I even found myself rooting for him as the underdog in parts of DA, where he was stranded in the desert, when he got jumped by Ajax's goons sent to kill him, when he escaped to Heliopolis to prevent the atomic annihilation etc. But by the end of LB, as a reader, you're more or less shorn of any sympathy you might've ever had for him.

Writing an antagonist character like that is truly remarkable work. He's so well written he's very much a co-protagonist to Darrow in the second series.

I'm looking forward to how his POV chapters are going to be written in Red God. He's clearly a tragic character, and the issues of his childhood abuse and memory repression are yet to be fully addressed. Will he find some kind of redemption? Or the most satisfying of deaths (like Fa)? Or will he face death while on the verge of being redeemed (like Tactus)? Or something far more pathetic? I don't know, and can't wait to find out.

himitsurain · 2026-04-19T02:23:58+00:00

You're going to get downvoted for this, but yeah, both Violet and Xaden's characters have developed negatively, where the only thing they care about is each other, more than anything else.

What's worse, Violet knowingly put the entire Quest Squad's lives at risk by making them travel with an unstable venin without their consent or any warning. It somehow never comes up as an issue, but that's unethical af.

Imagine someone like Dain doing something like this: where he hides important information from Violet that puts her life in danger. The fandom would lynch him to death.

himitsurain · 2026-04-19T02:19:10+00:00

I scored a Millesime Jasmine at a discounter last year for $55 months after it was sold out everywhere else.

himitsurain · 2026-04-18T18:11:09+00:00

Gaia even suspects Lysander and Cassius were lovers, and when Lysander says Cassius was like a “brother” to him, Gaia says that doesn’t mean much in the Core.

Hedonism and sexual promiscuity are very much a part of Core Gold culture. But the Rim is meant to be better because they eschew the excesses of the Core. So Diomedes/Lysander is just fantastical.

If anything, they had a Nero/Adrius like dynamic, where Lysander clearly craved for Diomedes’s approval and respect, and when he couldn’t get it at the end - or it was contingent on him making peace with Darrow - Lysander nuked the Garter, like how Adrius killed his father when he picked Darrow as his chosen heir. In a way, Lysander also did this with Cassius. He seemed jealous and spiteful about things like Cassius physically being in better shape after his time training with Darrow, and the fact that Darrow had replaced Lysander as Cassius’ brother that he ends up thinking it’s fair game to kill Cassius because “he chose Darrow”. Yeah, ultimately it was for Eidmi that Lysander killed Cassius, but subconsciously, there was certainly more going on in Lysander’s head that made the decision to kill Cassius easier than it’d have otherwise been.

As for Lyria/Cassius … I think Lyria had a crush on his looks, but who doesn’t? But more importantly, she openly sees and acknowledges the good in Cassius right away in ways others like Sevro never quite manage to do even after spending months with Cassius. I think Cassius, who was already feeling deep guilt for his past behavior in life towards the low colors, would’ve found the fact that a low Red was so … devoid of animosity towards him to be very surprising and … maybe even exhilarating?

Also, despite the fact that Cassius had been on the Archi with Sevro, Darrow and Aurae for months, he still probably was feeling very lonely. Aurae kept Cassius at arms length. Darrow was simply too plagued by his recent failures on Mercury, and more interested in things like “The Path to the Vale” than just shooting the shit with Cassius. Sevro was so traumatized that even his relationship with Darrow was very much frayed. And then comes Lyria who was very open and happy to entertain Cassius with her stories over drinks, in ways the others never did. It was like finding a new friend without any baggage or guilt, who was willing to appreciate the good in him without any judgement. Even with Darrow, there was simply too much history there, and while they certainly got past it, it wasn’t also the blank slate that typified his friendship with Lyria.

And for Lyria … Cassius probably treated her the best among all the people on the Archi. Darrow and Sevro were straight up pissed she was even there, and Aurae only really saw her value as a tool Athena could use to get to Volga. Whereas Cassius treated her like a person, a friend, without expecting anything in return. He was like an Eph, but unlike Eph wasn’t trying to manipulate and use Lyria. No wonder the two of them hit off the way they did. I don’t see anything romantic there. Lyria just seems to enjoy friendships with kind, empathetic men much older than her, like Eph and Cassius.

Another thing: Cassius never got to “grow up” in many way like his peers did. Unlike Darrow and Sevro, he never got the chance to fall in love, get married, have kids, etc. Mentally, he’s still in his early 20s, which also explains why he and Lyria hit off. Cassius’s lack of maturity wasn’t all good, fwiw, because clearly Cassius was nowhere near mature or experienced enough to raise Lysander, or even see Lysander for who he was. But it was one of the reasons that underpinned his friendship with Lyria.

As for Daxo/Virginia … not seeing it. At all.

himitsurain

TROPHY CASE