Transfem Ralsei Masterpost!
this post will have been in the drafts for a while before i post it. it's a post detailing all of the times i could find in my most recent playthrough when ralsei gave off serious transfem energy.
bare in mind that this is only all of the transfem ralsei moments that i could find! if you know something i missed, feel free to add it!
even with that in mind, this is still a pretty long one, so get ready for a ride.
fun fact! when i first played, i actually gave her the white ribbon because she had lower max HP than "me" (Kris), and was rewarded with this dialogue, where she asks if we think it makes her pretty.
yes. i think you're pretty. i also love you so much i might explode, but we'll worry about that later.
i feel like the use of the word pretty instead of cute is important.
i'm counting this. like, you can't just call a local "boy" an egg multiple times and not expect me to count it.
this was in response to us drawing a schematic for a sexy machine, but... come on.
i've been pranking kris and their allies by showing the wrong equipment to them to get all the dialogue. this was susie's reaction to the Dainty Scarf. my reaction to that, was, of course, "what's a doily?"
So i looked up "doilies" and
ah! i have seen these before, but i did not know their name. it may seem a little silly to count the material a scarf is made of as evidence of transfemininity, but i always considered these things feminine.
and then, there's this...
possibly THE most important scene in chapter 1
i feel it worth pointing out that it was susie who convinced her to take off her hat.
but more importantly, this is her first step out of the closet. finally brave enough to show us what she really looks like. with susie's help.
and so many of us, cruelly, told her to put the hat back on. that she looked better when she was hiding her true face.
there's more to ralsei taking off her hat. ever since she made this first step, she has, (assumedly) inadvertently entered an unending war against the very game itself.
and the legend of tenna...
continue to depict Ralsei with her hat on, despite the change, and progress, she's made.
But when we're actually looking at her, we can only see her real face.
i will get back to ralsei's hat when it becomes relevant again in chapter 4. for now, we'll briefly step into...
chapter 2 doesn't have as much as chapter 1, but what it does have is pretty big.
(oh, the stammer. somebody free her...)
now, i can potentially see the argument that simply thinking that the dress the mannequin wears is cute doesn't mean anything, but even if you do think that; the dress itself is important, and [this] post goes into detail why. reading that post is now homework, you have to read it before you can continue reading this one.
now that you're back we can continue. next is, (and everyone reading this knew this one was coming) during the acid tunnel of love, when prompted to say that it's nice that ralsei is ralsei...
this is how she responds.
regardless of context, this is bursting with transfem energy.
not sure if that counts for anything, but i figured i might as well.
they're even called eggs.
this is her choice of action when introducing herself to the audience. a very specific bow; a curtsy. a very interesting choice!
which could mean nothing. anyway, look at this new armor i got!
there are 3 different colors of ribbons in the game (so far). the white and pink ribbons can be combined at the smithy to make the twin ribbon.
the last one is the blue ribbon.
thanks to the twin ribbon, all of the colors of the trans flag can be worn at once!
her reaction shortly after learning that susie switched controllers.
(i also tried with all my might to get her to wear the 2nd bow on this board. but no matter how hard i tried, i could not throw her onto it...)
let's take another brief asside to talk about ralsei's hat.
ralsei's hat was taken away by the wind, lost to the sky, we will never see it again.
she will never be able to hide her real face again.
she will not ever be able to step back into the closet. there is no turning back. we can only move forward now.
this is who she is now. she's accepted it, so have the lightners, and all of the people of castle town. if there's someone who can't accept that, then i don't think i trust them.
okay! so, posts have an image cap of 30, and i'm getting close to that, so i have to wrap this up.
we HAVE to talk about ralsei's room.
there's something about the way this is worded... this weird "purpose" talk. it calls fourth certain feelings, brings to mind certain images. this desire to be useful to others for nothing in return seems all too common in transfems. including myself.
in this same conversation, she asks kris if having feelings is selfish. okay, that's not the exact wording
she says it like this, and the way she interrupts herself, it feels like she's "correcting" herself by striping herself of individuality. making herself smaller.
she is so trapped inside herself, and her roll as the "prince" that anything she does that deviates from that roll is percieved as "unnatural"; a problem that needs to be hidden and locked away.
i feel it's important to mention that it is once again primarilly susie who helps ralsei take these steps.
she was the one who told ralsei to drop that mysterious cloak.
she was the one who told ralsei to drop her diguise.
she was the one who told ralsei to eat the cake.
she was the one who told ralsei to get nice things for herself.
and she's gonna be the one who tells ralsei that she doesn't have to be a prince.
that room has one more, decisive, piece of evidence.
it's not an action taken, or words said. it's the song that plays.
i... cannot stress the sudden rush of emotions when i heard this playing there. it stopped just being a headcanon to me at that moment.
the naysayers can't exactly keep saying "he's just a gnc guy" after that and expect me to take them seriously.
there's... more, actually. that i'm not able to fit in this post. i've pretty much hit the image cap. but the ending of chapter 4 also hits pretty hard.
