*Susie used RUDE BUSTER!

I'd individually render the poses to get that early 3D shine ✨ Here's some of them at their original resolutions! I would work from text descriptions from Toby, and sometimes there'd be a Paint sketch to help out. Gigi drew the concept that I modeled from and some poses too!

I had a lot of fun pushing myself to match the dynamic poses Toby had in mind for Tenna - making him so crazy and expressive was something I couldn't have done without his prompts. He'd draw the faces on afterward too, which really brought Tenna to life!

(lots more after the Read More cut...!)

I finished it!!!!!!

finally finished my kris talksprites! dark world versions under cut :)

Ralsei's whole character is the idea of the reclamation of the self (which is pretty applicable to any trans identity there is), but through the lens of his femininity and his attitude towards service in the first few chapters, I draw some parallels to transmasc experience, specifically the experience of a fem trans man (of which I am).

As little girls living in a patriarchal society, we are either explicitly or implicitly taught that we will be in service to others our entire lives. That's what being a woman is, right? We we're expected to do domestic labor and emotional labor, all with a smile on our face and a polite attitude.

Ralsei, at the start of the game, is pretty much the exact same way. He believes he exists to be in service to lightners. To do domestic labor for them like baking cakes and setting up their rooms for them. To do emotional labor for them, like being the voice of pacifism and comfort for them. He believes he is supposed to keep smiling through it all ("look, Kris. I'm smiling" he says with blood on his face). His story is one of servitude.

But as we grow into our own people, and this is true for women and transmasculine people alike, there is a chance to step back and refuse this expectation of toxic feminine gender roles. For transmasculine folks in particular, that refusal of gender roles comes with the intrinsic tie to the gender itself. But for fem trans men, it is a little more complicated in that there is a reclamation of that femininity in their own image with their own personhood tied to it.

In Ralsei's case, as he starts to discover his own personhood in the later chapters, he does not shy away from the feminine that he used to embody, but instead reclaims it in this new context. In fact, at points he becomes a little more masculine, following the lead of Susie by trying out abrasive humor and becoming a little less respectable as he believed he should be. In such, his arc very closely follows a feminine trans man's reclamation of the expectation of femininity into the use of femininity in freedom and free expression and personhood.

The only real obstacle to this theory in particular is the fact that Ralsei makes this journey while embodying the male gender, rather than him making the transition gradually with his arc. But I could argue that his transition happened before the events of the story, and these residual expectations continue to linger, as they do for man trans men embodied as both 1) how we have always been expected to act and 2) the new expectation people have for us to perform labor for them because we are transmasc***. And again, the only issue with this theory is how would he know to take that agency for himself before the events of the story when at the beginning of the story, he basically took no agency at all. A reasonable answer to this could be that he didn't do so out of agency for himself. The prophecy called for a prince, so he became one, and subsequentially reclaimed exactly how he would embody the prince as he goes through his arc.

Regarding the track "Lost Girl" playing during his scene in his room, there could very much be subtextual commentary on the transmasculine experience through the use of the track in particular, especially when Terfs love to call us "lost girls" when we transition.

But anyway, I wanted to share my interpretation on why transmasc Ralsei actually has some pretty strong points towards it as a theory. I don't necessarily think it will be canonized, but I find comfort in having a GNC boy in a main character role that reflects a lot of what I experience as a fem trans man, both in childhood and currently.

I don't know much about deltarune, thank you to my lovely friends who helped me out in making these!