#I was imagining the Rheddig as militaristic with slightly advanced magic-based technology

[phoenixiancrystallist]

It's 6am and I didn't have Forspoken dreams which, y'know, typical, I never dream about what I want to dream about, but!! I'm having Thoughts™. And the TL/DR of those thoughts is "I KNEW the DLC would wreck my self-insert bullshit!" XD

The absolutely fanatical devotion the Rheddig have to General What's-His-Butt (I'm bad with names; I'll memorize his later) and the invasion in general completely scraps all my OCs except Keen. All two of them. Which is fine, I fully expected that to happen, but the fact that the Rheddig are apparently a death cult has me reeling?

I can understand soldiers falling for propaganda. I'm an American, that's kind of our schtick. But the whole "honor by sacrificing to a tree" thing and especially "may their deaths cleanse them of sin" (or whatever the actual phrase was; again, I'll memorize it later) is... yeah, Frey was right to call that a cult. That's cult shit, baybee!

And then there's Cuff. Playing up and hyping up the Rheddig and their invasion as just and righteous, not even a little bit phased by the fanatical devotion, and even calling it "commitment." Honey, that's not commitment, that's brainwashing.

I can't tell yet if he's putting on an act to fuck with Frey, or if he hasn't fully grasped how completely un-goddamn-hinged his countrymen are yet. But the fact that in one breath he's all "ah yes, my righteous and noble brethren," and in the next he's encouraging her to go fight the tree and General What's-His-Nuts. Buddy, what is your angle? Do you even know? I can't wait to find out.

Especially ironic that he accuses Frey of being unable to understand what commitment looks like while she's just said "well if I need to die for Athia I'm down, and so is Thalia." I think she gets it just fine, bud. I think you're lying to yourself about what devotion and duty look like, because otherwise you're gonna have to examine some deeply uncomfortable things about yourself.

At least he has the decency to be "wait what?!" when Frey just... calmly accepts that dying for Athia is the right thing to do. She's right in this circumstance, it is the right thing to do, and I'm so goddamn proud of her, but also props to Cuff for having hang ups about that and acting on the instinct to keep Frey (and thereby himself, sure) safe.

Based on how he'd been acting up til that point, you'd think he, of all people, would understand why Frey and Thalia are sacrificing themselves for Athia. But he balks at this idea! And I love him for it 💜 The fucking hypocrite XD

...actually now that I've got these words worded out in my head I think I can finagle Knell and Flick into fitting with the Rheddig backstory and being what I need them to be for the self-insert bullshit to work. Just have them break from the cult. I'll have to scrap and/or overhaul everything I've written so far, but such is life. I'm keeping the zombie fight scene, though.