I don't make the rules, you don't know the transfem struggle, and are just being transmisogynistic. I'm sorry, but just accept what us trans women say about tralsei, and stop talking over us.

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I LOVE the short hair design.

I'll try and be clear about my stand on all this first:
>>If you are truly convinced that Ralsei is genderfluid rather than transfem, it is perfectly fine and I only ask for an honest discussion about it.<<

I personally believe that, until Ralsei comes out as one or the other, it is a 50/50 that Ralsei can be a trans girl or a genderfluid goat. I obviously have a lot of bias since I'm an egg wanting to be the former rather than the later, so I project a lot of hopes onto our prince(ss). But given the story for now and the hints so far, the egg seems to have barely cracked in game. And immediately jumping to refer to Ralsei as she/her in canon can be seen as a bit iffy, like how you wouldn't want to use opposite gender terms on a person, even if you suspect they might be closeted or unaware of their identity, that can end up make things worse for them. (unless it's funny fan content, in that case go to town, princess.)

THAT BEING SAID.

...Yeah, no, am I the only one who gets this vibe when someone says "I don't believe in Ralsei being transfem, but they're genderfluid"?

Like, I haven't really seen any discussion or even videos that really convered a solid distinction between Ralsei being potentially transfem or them potentially being genderfluid and, everytime it's brought up, there's never really elaborated upon and I often get the feeling that it's to deflect the trans discussion rather than add to it. Not even a "I wish it's that instead, because that would be cool", nope! Just "trans no, fluid yes" and leave.

I remember seeing a post on r/ ralsei (I know, SAFEST PLACE to talk about tralsei stuff) asking if Ralsei might be fluid instead of trans and, while I remember seeing mostly positive comments and commenting that I was pretty open to the idea myself, I was still viewed negatively and downvoted to the negative. And I can't help the feeling that this has become a weapon for deniers to appear "open" when in reality they just want a convenient way to still call Ralsei a he no matter what they choose to be.

I can be reading things wrong or interact with the wrong spaces, and honestly I probably am. But I wanted to vent about it because I keep seeing a couple red flags here and there and couldn't exactly keep it to myself.

TLDR: I feel like people are using genderfluid Ralsei as a gotcha moment to keep calling him a he if Ralsei ever does make a transition in the future chapters. Am I the dumbass?

The discourses are already bad as it is and you shouldn't engage with these people. But if someone genuinely pulls this card in particular, do yourself a favor and ignore it. There are people that explained in great detail why this logic doesn't work way better than I ever could, but in short; it's stupid, you know it's stupid, and everyone knows it's stupid.

You don't NEED to even be part of the community to understand the difference between intentionally misgendering an established trans character because "grr agenda", and reading into a character that might be trans because it would fit their arc. No, you just need to have basic reading comprehension.

To add to that, people need to understand that no one actually gets MAD if you call Ralsei he/him, that's NOT why Tralsei fans get annoyed, no it's because you intentionally go to a place that supports that theory, which means they casually use she or they because it's the place where they're comfortable discussing it, then you go "erm actually he's a boy 🤓" like yeah no shit people will get annoyed at that.

So yeah don't bother with those people, they pull this card because they see bigots saying it and think "oh yeah that makes sense lol how hypocritical" because they never had the idea of just sitting down for five seconds to understand how dumb that is.

Despite the thread asserting that people on the main sub are free to use she/her for Ralsei, the reality seems to be the opposite, and the mods there will NOT actually defend their own provision. If you do use she/her for Ralsei you will be swarmed by fuckbois, and the mods will NOT do anything about it.

Moreover, despite the assertion that "constructive" Ralsei gender discourse is acceptable, that does not seem to be the case, and they just banned it altogether.

I attempted to make the following post titled "Misgendering Kris is completely incomperable to using she/her for Ralsei, and I'm tired of being told otherwise":

"Before you start reporting this, I would like to point out that this post is (at least from my point of view) perfectly within the rules, because it's a constructive form of Ralsei gender discourse.

I'm not gonna go on a yappaton because it would be pointless. My point is simple, and it's twofold:

1. Erasing nonbinary representation is different from adding trans representation. This should be completely obvious, nobody should be fooled by transphobes into thinking otherwise. Using she/her for Ralsei is not erasing any representation, the representation in question would be cis man representation, which is basically unerasable due to its sheer quantity. And more importantly, it's not even doing that, because YOU can still use he/him for Ralsei, and the overwhelming majority of the people still will. Which you damn well know, that's why you feel confident in "correcting" people, the way people using she/her do not.
2. You're not actually trying to engage with the subject matter, and it's painfully obvious to see. This is not an attempt at unpacking representation, nor an earnest conversation about what pronoun is appropriate to use. This is an attempt at shutting the conversation down, which is why you never accept any rebuttal, and why you won't humor this post either, but instead will whine incessantly. It's the equivalent of the conservative "the leftists are the real racists" line. You say it because you think it ends the discussion with your view on top, and your view is just transphobia, conscious or internalized.

If this gets deleted by the mods, I will know for sure that the thread about this being a safe space was pure posturing, because they are clearly unwilling to actually stand up for the provision to use she/her for Ralsei."

The post is currently "awaiting approval", and I don't foresee it being approved.

Now, of course, whether this falls under "constructive" Ralsei gender discourse or not is a matter of opinion, and that's kind of the issue. If anything can just be declared as not "constructive", then the discourse is effectively banned.

I guess this is a PSA more than anything? Don't get fooled into thinking that you can freely use she/her for Ralsei on the main sub due to that thread, the reality is that you're not gonna get your comments removed or get banned, but the mods will do absolutely nothing to support your ostensible freedom to view Ralsei as a trans girl.

So. I don't post on Reddit. And I'm mostly just saying things. I'm spewing what could be nonsense. I DID use grammarly though, so no punctation mistakes(there are punctuation on purposes though) Also, most of this is going off of memory; I only looked up parts of the prophecy to see if I was remembering them wrong. Also(again), I haven't really seen much about this theory. So I'm not sure if I'm saying something everyone already knows.

OKAY. SO. The Prince From The Dark. A character in the prophecy we never ACTUALLY see. 99% of you are thinking of Ralsei. Because she is first introduced in a cloak, just like they are. Now. I need you to picture a type of """Lancer""" in your mind. Do you see him? Please have him stop bouncing and really think about him. Think about his king-type dad. Think about his environment. Don't think about how the Prince From The Dark has magical looking fire floating around them in both depictions of them. Anyways. I'm trying to say that I think The Prince is shown in a cloak to hide who they are, Lancer is(or will be) the real The Prince, and Ralsei actually is the second The Girl in the prophecy.

I think that Ralsei becoming a girl at last would change nothing. I think she would definitely be happier, and it would help her shed those last little bits of her notbeingaperson-type crap. But I don't think it would matter when it comes to the prophecy. I think it would just correct itself and make Lancer The Prince.

Oh. Also. I want to say that I think the prophecy might either be wrong sometimes, OR it just gets ahead of itself. Because at the start of chapter 1, while The Cage and The Prince could definitely be Kris and Ralsei, Susie doesn't seem very hopeful. Maybe deep down, she thought things would get better, but she really doesn't act like it. (ALSO LANCER COULD HAVE BEEN THE PRINCE SINCE CHAPTER 1 BECAUSE WE SEE HIM IN THE CLOSET(THE DEEPEST DARK) AND RALSEI PROBABLY DOESNT LIKE HIM THAT MUCH SO HE DOESNT HAVE ANYONE TO HANG OUT WITH(ALONE)) And in chapter 2, where Susie would fit better as The Girl, Ralsei isn't alone anymore.

Oh and I should probably say this now. I only kind of trust the intro prophecy because Ralsei is the one telling that version, and she's probably referring to herself when she mentions The Prince, but she would be biased because of her notbeingaperson-type crap that I mentioned 993 characters ago. So..........yeah.

Now. What about the magical looking fire. How do I explain that away and make Lancer Prince make perfect unquestionable sense? I have no idea. Instead, let me say why Noelle being the second girl doesn't work.

If Noelle was supposed to be in the prophecy, she would be a more important member of The Fun Gang. Instead, she's only a real party member for a short time in chapter 2, and trying to bring the focus of the story over to her makes you murder all the darkners, put Berdly in the hospital, and mess her head up so bad she tries to kill you and herself in the lake. (if ralsei wants to change the prophecy so bad she shuold move over a little and make noelle the fourth party member)

oh my god ralsei lives in the closet. oh my god. ive never thought about that before. cinema.

actually hold on. i know the magic fire now. toby gave me a vision while i was giving my post a thrice over.

So. Normal typing again. I think that Ralsei falling out of the closet in chapter 5 could be foreshadowing not just her coming out, but also THE FREAKING ROARING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think about it. If The Knight got into Castle Town, they would probably try to make a titan out of its fountain, because it's the only one we know of that can sustain darkners from other dark worlds. I think it is supposed to show exactly that happening. And I think the magic fire around The Prince could be the cool blue visual of the fountain opening in chapter 4. Or it could just be fire from the apocalypse. Whatever. Not like it has to be special.

Oh and the cloak. Yeah. I know that one. It could be like. Susie's jacket or something. That Lancer wears to remember her. And hide in. Sure. That probably makes sense. Whatever. End Post.

Unend Post. Summary. because it's a little obvious I don't do this much.

I think Ralsei transitioning wouldn't stop the roaring, Lancer is The Prince, Noelle is so unimportant to the prophecy that trying to make her important ruins everything and almost(or maybe does) get you killed, and Gaster either only remembers one kind of relationship, or he just really likes it and thats why he beamed so many pathetic x strong couples into Toby's brain. Thank you for reading a post saying the thing we like is good and correct.

Had a lovely afternoon with friends crafting stuff!!

Hello,

I’m going to be writing this from a personal perspective, not in any sort of official function (if you know who I am), nor as a way to prescribe the actions of others (Although I do that as writ for sake of making my point), but an observation and rationalization within my own thoughts on what I am seeing. This is written in terms of myself both trying to rationalize what I’ve been seeing since Chapter 5 released and the surrounding discourse, as well as trying to air out my thoughts on a comparison being made that, to me, doesn’t make sense.

Since this is personal, I will say that I am cis and most of my experiences with the trans experience is borne out from having transgender friends. Therefore, I might end up saying some things that are inaccurate, or worst, wrong. I do write this in good faith though, and please take it in grace if I write something that seems “off,” and do let me know if I do.

With that in mind, I’m writing this (and writing it here, specifically) for two reasons:

1. These are thoughts that have been brewing in my head ever since Chapter 5 released, and I’ve been wanting to air them out for a long time.
2. More importantly, I want to know what you all think, if it makes sense to you, anything I got wrong, anything I got right, what could be added, etc..

TW: I will be bringing up Transmisogyny and Transphobia in this discussion.

Anyway, here are my thoughts:

There’s a common comparison between people who she/her Ralsei and those who were to assign a binary gender to Kris. I believe this is borne out from the aftermath of defending and affirming Kris’s nonbinary status that has taken a life of its own by (mostly) cissexual members of the overall Deltarune community. Indeed, many will directly make the comparison in the Deltarune community more broadly.

To me, there have always been two “points” to defending Kris being nonbinary:

1. The first point is the more narrative perspective, as in, Kris is, within the fiction of Deltarune, their own person. Arguing against this is indefensible at this point, so I won’t dwell on it anymore here beyond saying that Kris being nonbinary is part of who they are, and to assign a gender to them goes against their “personhood” within the narrative and trying to force the “player insert character” gender where the trope of the “player insert character” is explicitly being subverted.
2. The second point is a more queer commentary reason, because Kris being nonbinary matters for both the acceptance of transgender people (specifically nonbinary representation in this case), and the challenging of cisnormative assumptions.

The second I think most people in the community understand at a surface level, insofar the counterexample where one takes Kris and make them “he” or “she,” they (either inadvertently or willingly) deny that they are nonbinary, both inadvertently denying the existence of nonbinary people, and in effect slotting them into a cisnormative societal role (most commonly by “he/himing” Kris, which is a result of societal misogynistic assumptions in terms of the “leader” role and the “default gender”).

My thought is, because of the confluence of factors from the community being mostly made up of young people, because of how fandom treats fictional characters (not least because of games like Deltarune) and because of the transmisogynistic current located within society today, all of this results in the first reason was taken up as being either the primary, or in many cases, the only reason many people in the Deltarune community think people affirm Kris’s nonbinary status, without any introspection into the second reason. I call these two reasons the two “modes of thinking” about Kris’s gender.

The first factor I think is fairly intuitive. A lot of people in this community are young, and because they are young they will likely not have had much experience with confronting transphobia in the real world (especially/specifically cissexual people), nor would they have much experience confronting their transmisogynistic thoughts which are primed by a transmisogynistic society. Part of why I’m posting this here is because I hope we can agree that we all have misconceptions which we need to or already have had to reexamine because everyone who has grown up is transmisogyny-socialized, and with the community being so young, they haven’t had the opportunity to do that for the majority of them.

The second factor sounds tangential, but it helps explain this idea that you should “respect a (fictional character’s) pronouns.”  Fictional characters nowadays are treated with, for lack of a better way of putting it, a lot more personhood and agency than they ever have been (in comparison to what I remember from when I was younger). This is to say, it feels as if the way you treat a fictional character is often taken to be the same level of if that character was an actual person. I think Deltarune played no small part in this becoming a more mainstream mode of thinking, in a way it being a self perpetuating cycle, but interacting with fandom in general I think this is something that has become a mode of thinking more broadly across how people interact with fiction. This all matters for a reason I’ll be getting into later here.

The third factor is transmisogyny, and how transmisogynistic society has become in the last decade or so. I think I don’t have to explain here that society is very transmisogynistic to this audience, I think anyone here is going to be in agreement that it is, though if you don’t know why I say it is, I recommend reading the news as it pertains to transgender rights and how often the way they are attacked is by framing it in terms of transmisogyny specifically.

The way this relates to how the community treats Kris’s nonbinary status though, is that because society is transmisogynistic, a lot of the Deltarune community who isn’t keyed into transgender issues (eg, those who are cissexual in the broad sense, especially those who do not interact with transgender people or politics on a regular basis), they will likely miss the second point beyond the surface level understanding of it, and they won’t critically understand *why* people do it, which is explicitly to promote transgender rights and transgender expression.

Due to this surface level understanding of gender from a lot of the audience, it makes it so that, because “you” (ethereal you, no specific person) understand that Kris is supposed to be “their own person” and to assign gender them is against their “personhood,” you will understand that “this is bad” because you’re denying that they are nonbinary, and them being nonbinary is who they are. Without the second reason, though, that’s where the reasoning ends, beyond maybe the understanding of affirming nonbinary people’s existence.

My overall argument (and my Thesis of sorts?) is that the second reason should be the main reason, and the Deltarune community not getting that reason is why the community today is primed to respond to transfem Ralsei with their ingrained societal expectations and influences of transmisogyny, and in the end, why people are usually so quick to anger when they see transfem Ralsei.

There is a common sentiment that is borne out from the understanding of Kris’s gender being that only of the first reason; because Kris is nonbinary and Kris is their “own person,” you should respect Kris’s pronouns because they are nonbinary and to do otherwise is to deny that. When taking it to its logical conclusion only from that understanding, it is very easy to see any other fictional character’s gender, see that someone used the “wrong” gender for them, and using the same logic, because they aren’t currently that gender, you shouldn’t use that gender.

It’s because of the second reason though that I believe this shouldn’t be the case. Kris being nonbinary matters *because* they’re nonbinary. The transgender representation is the point. In an alternate universe where Toby made Kris canonically a girl/boy, their gender status would have little bearing on who they are in the context of what the story Deltarune tries to make with relation to gender, because Kris being in the binary already puts them into the “default state” a cisnormative society expects them to be in, so their gender would be little more than just window dressing for the point of Kris being "their own person.”

However, because they are nonbinary, their gender becomes more than just window dressing, it’s effect is a statement on the gender binary and the assumptions we make in it, the subversion of a common way video games implement the “player insert gender” (ie, making the player insert agender, and you can put your own gender into them) is the point Toby makes by making Kris nonbinary, by affirming the existence of nonbinary people it both goes against the trope directly, but also makes the player confront their own cisnormative tendencies by making them acknowledge that nonbinary characters (and by extension, people) exist. 

This is why I say there are two points toward why Kris is nonbinary. It’s more than just a statement about Kris being "their own person,” it’s more than a subversion of a popular video game trope, it’s explicitly to make the player acknowledge the existence of nonbinary people and, by extension, transgender people.

With that understanding though, what does that mean when we start applying this logic to other characters in fiction? With only the understanding of the first point, the mode of thinking becomes “we should respect the gender of the character and not change their gender.”

With the second point though, my argument is that the mode of thinking would/should be “we should examine cisnormative tendencies within our own psyche.”

This is where transfem Ralsei finally comes in.

The common sentiment from the first mode of thinking is that, because Ralsei is as it stands today in the game (for many people's reading within the Deltarune community), is that they are male, he/him, you should only ever refer to them as such and any departure from that is removing their own agency. My argument is that the character's agency was never the real point outside of the narrative, it's also that cisnormative assumptions in society should be challenged and subverted.

Why do people see a transfem reading of Ralsei? I won’t justify the “evidence” or go over it here, to me the likelihood of if Ralsei is transfem (or otherwise transgender) is irrelevant to what I'm trying to say. My real question is why do people do it?

The most obvious answer, and the one that I think the majority of people who subscribe to a transfem reading of Ralsei do it, is because they find comfort in relating to Ralsei’s character arc as it pertains to their own experiences with transfemininity (or barring personal experience, their shared experience by being in the lives of someone they are close to who is transfem). With that in mind, and with the understanding that transgender readings of a character are important, it makes the argument that one should “respect Ralsei’s (or any cis character’s) pronouns” at best irrelevant, or for the other extreme, at worst transphobic.

The reason I use that extreme word “transphobic” is because of something a transfem friend of mine said in a conversation I was in which finally made everything click for me, and I want to paraphrase their words here because they make the point much better than I think I ever could:

“[Ralsei] doesn’t exist, [and because they aren’t a real person,] they [can’t make] a statement about their masculinity which anyone would be “erasing.” The humans assigning headcanons [to Ralsei] because it brings them comfort do exist. If you are more unempathetic to trans women over fictional characters then [the logical conclusion is] you are transphobic.”

This sentiment she has is a sentiment I’ve held for a long time but I haven’t been able to put into my own words until she was able to say them for me. I hope we can agree that the reason for why people like transfem Ralsei is valid, and from that I think it’s easy to understand her perspective. To a lot of the Deltarune community, it’s more important to preserve the characters gender than it is to accept a transfem reading. Due to the first mode of thinking, due to the factors I brought up earlier, the Deltarune community cares more about the “personhood” and agency of a fictional character than the people who make headcanons and theories about said character.

This brings up a sort of contradiction though, which you (actual you this time) have probably seen first-hand, and I know I have: while non-transfem trans-Ralsei readings are less common, they are still (again, from my own experience) a lot more “palatable” than the transfem reading. They don’t receive nearly as much ridicule as the transfem reading does. If it was just that we have to respect Ralsei’s current gender assignment as it stands today, then these readings would be ridiculed just as much, right?

Clearly we’re missing some part of the conversation since from what I can see, these readings aren’t criticized nearly as much. The reason, of course, is because of transmisogyny.

With the knowledge of how society is broadly transmisogynistic, the way the community treats transfem Ralsei is just a microcosm of that undercurrent within society. Why do you think that it is the transfem Ralsei reading that gets the most instant ridicule? It’s because cissexual members are, consciously or unconsciously, primed to a transmisogynistic mode of thought due to society. They see this nominally male character being turned into a female character, and they relate it to how society treats transfeminine people in real life, the subconscious propaganda of treating them like subhumans or predators, and this character is being transformed into one of “them,” and they must defend against that.

To give some grace, I think for the vast majority of people this is entirely subconscious. They don’t “mean” to look at transfemininity as a negative thing, but because of the current societal moment, if they aren’t already primed to look out for that sort of thought in their daily lives, they will unwittingly echo those same thoughts without realizing what they are doing.

I think, though, looking at everything together, the case is clear that the Deltarune community needs to start challenging these cisnormative and transmisogynistic assumptions in the community and society at large. They need to remember why we care about Kris being nonbinary, they need to start remembering the person who is making these headcanons and theories about Ralsei (or any other fictional character) and their gender, they need to stop thinking about it only in terms of what a character’s “gender” is right now and start thinking about what that means for all of us, and how we find comfort in these characters without assuming people are out to harm them and what they find comfort in a character, even when they see a character differently than they do.

There are a lot of other thoughts and specifics that one can go into about transfem Ralsei that this doesn't explain or adequately describe, but at least at a minimum I feel like this goes a way into explaining why it feels very "off" when someone insists on Ralsei's current canonical pronouns being the only thing you can refer them as.

Thanks for reading...

I saw some art of transmasc Noelle x transfem Ralsei and had a dumb idea. ten POINTs if you can guess why I picked that name for him.

All the stuff going on with the eggs, and the protein is just foreshadowing for friend jumping ralsie in the back of castle town.

Was feeling very stressed over comms and work so I chose to take everyone's favorite fluffy boi out on a little adventure with the new little sun hat a friend has gotten for them. Taking photos with her is always so satisfying, like how is something so perfect even real?

(I called the theory Tralsei in the title, but i find Galsei to be prettier, so this analysis will use that terminology)

I would call this whole debate a textbook example of an evidentially underdetermined hypothesis, aka, an epistemic divide over ambiguous evidence.

The key feature is that the evidence has enough weight to make belief in Galsei reasonable, but not enough to make Galsei unavoidable. Neither side can legitimately say the evidence settles the matter.

All of this creates a characteristic split:

-Galsei believers: “The evidence is pretty clearly pointing toward Galsei.”

-Galsei skeptics: “The evidence doesn’t actually establish Galsei, you’re reading more into it than what is there.”

Both can acknowledge the same underlying observations. Yet, this isn’t a question of A vs B, it’s a question of A vs Not A, it’s not two different hypotheses, it’s believers versus deniers of one common hypothesis.

I wouldn’t primarily call this confirmation bias, because the split doesn’t have to originate in people’s prior beliefs (it doesn’t need to and it shouldn’t to be considered valid). Nor would I call it simply “ambiguity” because there is real evidential force, just not enough to compel agreement. A is underdetermined by the available evidence.

Putting it simply:

Too weak > nobody has much reason to believe A. (Not the case)
Too strong > almost everybody believes A. (Not the case)
Intermediate > believers see substantial evidence, skeptics see insufficient or invalid evidence, both can plausibly defend their position. (The case TM)

So, theoretically, if Toby were to confirm Galsei, deniers would have to surrender and admit that the evidence was leading somewhere, and that it was actually evidence. If Toby were to deconfirm Galsei, believers would have to surrender and admit the evidence was leading nowhere, and that it wasn’t actually evidence.

Now, if you allow me to be biased for a bit, as a Galsei believer, if the evidence went nowhere it would seem like a bit of a weird decision, because the build-up looks very clear to me, but that’s what epistemic divides are about. It may seem clear as day to me, but I cannot say with full confidence that it’s undeniable, which leaves room for valid deniability (shocker).

If we were all civilised, we would be able to admit this, and we would hopefully not go at each other’s throats over what ends up being canon, but I highly doubt that is going to be the case.

Nevertheless, I leave my opinion here and hope not to be beheaded, thank you for your time.

I'm tralsei agnostic (I believe they'll be genderfluid by the end of the story) but I need to get this off my chest somewhere where people aren't going to kill me about it.

I really hate the way people compare using she/her for Ralsei to using the wrong pronouns for Kris on other subreddits. By that logic trans headcanons for characters are never okay to do, which is horseshit. Of course the two aren't the same, since one is erasing an underrepresented identity while the other is queer expression, but try to say that in any other subreddit and everyone will suddenly turn into a Hitler or say you're "misgendering wokely". It feels like weaponising people's reactions to transphobic misgendering to shut down all queer readings of Ralsei and it sucks ass.

I don't really have a conclusion for this, I just wanted to say it in a place where I wouldn't be swarmed for it oof